Gass_L^ 




Book^ilASiill 



Rhode Island Education Circ'ulars 



SCHOOL LAW 



OF 



RHODE ISLAND 



COMPILED BY 



CHARLES CARROLL 



CHAPTER I. The Development of Rhode Island School 
Law. 

CHAPTER II. The Rhode Island School System. 

CHAPTER III. Rhode Island School Law. 




PROVIDENCE : 

E. L. FREEMAN CO., STATE PRINTERS 

1914 






LIBRARY GF CO'^vinidc.3 
RECEIVED 

MAR 3 1932 

DIVISION GF OOCLIMtNTS 



1 



departme:nt of education 



INTRODUCTION 

In the study of school law and administration in 
Rhode Island presented in the following pages, Mr. 
Carroll has rendered an important service in the 
interest of public education. His careful investi- 
gation of our school legislation and experience in the 
past, his clear interpretation of the inter-relation 
of law and practice in the development of free public 
education, and his keen analysis of existing law and 
administration have produced an orderly exposition 
of Rhode Island's educational system, with its his- 
torical meaning, its legal standards, and its progressive 
tendencies. Heretofore the school law of Rhode 
Island has been available only in the forms of legis- 
lative enactments and judicial decisions; it is now 
presented, for the first time, in a compilation that 
brings together its related parts, both statutory^ 
and judicial provisions, organizes the whole subject- 
matter, and sets forth the various subjects in an 
analytical arrangement. The work is more than a 
compilation of school law. It presents public edu- 
cation as the fruition of civic experience, reveals 
the meaning, as well as the workings, of a people's 
educational organization, shows the public's school, 
established in public confidence and responsibility, as 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 



an agency of the people's government for the edu- 
cation of the pubhc's children, and directs our view 
beyond the school to the end of all free public 
education, the promotion of good citizenship and the 
public weal. 

In the school law of Rhode Island, as presented 
herein, appears the unity of all educational insti- 
tutions and agencies. All are governed, in various 
ways, by the State's laws, and together make up the 
State's educational system. In law, the state, as 
a civic organization of all its people, is primarily 
responsible for education, and education has become 
a, chief function of its government. The state gov- 
ernment, as an educational agency of all the people, 
supports and directs, in greater or less degree, all 
subordinate educational agencies. Local or munici- 
pal school governments derive their existence and 
powers from the state as determined by law, and are 
responsible to all the people of the state as well as to 
the smaller civic group they serve. Even incorpo- 
rated educational institutions have been created by 
the state, have been entrusted with public franchises 
by the state, and, with private schools, have its aid 
and protection. All our educational institutions 
are endowed with public interest and responsibility 
and are alike under the law of public service. 

In a study of the development of school law in 
Rhode Island, one cannot fail to observe the conti- 
nuity of progress, with neither radical reform nor 
striking reaction, which has obtained for nearly three 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 6 

quarters of a century. With progressive develop- 
ment there has been a conservation of fundamental 
principles and of successful practice, almost suggesting 
definite policies in the public consciousness. ^ Such 
fortunate experience is due, in great degree, to the 
fact that the foundations of school law and organi- 
zation in Rhode Island were laid by Henry Barnard, 
the first Commissioner of Public Schools, who was 
perhaps the most influential educator of his time in 
America. His knowledge of conditions, his under- 
standing both of public needs and of the public will, 
his educational ideals, his broad views, and wise 
foresight enabled him to establish in law and practice 
a school organization, whose enduring principles 
have given it permanency and whose adaptability 
has made it susceptible of progressive development. 
A knowledge of school law and administration is 
obviously indispensable to teachers and school officers, 
for it is the source of their powers and duties. But 
school law is more than the technical definition of 
powers and duties, important and necessary as such 
function of law is. It is the framework of our 
entire educational system. It embodies the political 
principles that govern its administration. It involves 
the social experience from which has issued our pro- 
fession of public school teaching. It forms the basis 
of the professional ethics of the teacher, as a public 
servant, and contains the fundamental principles of 
school government and instruction. The letter of 
the law may inform, but it is its spirit that quickens. 



b SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

Our school law is the expression of the public will and 
school administration is carrying that will into effect. 
A true understanding of the public will, as expressed 
in law, and a loyal spirit to execute that will are 
essential qualifications of a public school teacher. 

Appreciation and grateful acknowledgments are 
extended to Mr. Carroll for his valuable study of 
the school law of Rhode Island and for his generosity 
in preparing it for publication and free distribution. 
The need of such a work has long been felt, and it is 
issued in the belief that it will be welcomed by 
teachers and school officers and that it will bring 
about a wider knowledge of school law and adminis- 
tration in Rhode Island and a better understanding 
of the fundamental principles and of the function 
of our educational organization. 

WALTER E. RANGER, 

Commissioner of Public Schools. 



NOTE 

In Chapters 1 and 2 figures enclosed in parentheses refer to notes printed 
at the end of each chapter. 



CHAPTER I. 

The Development of Rhode Island School Law. 

Rhode Island's record of colonial school legislation is brief. 
In 1764, 128 years after Roger WilHams and his associates 
established the first English settlement at Providence, a 
charter was granted to the ''trustees and fellows of the college 
or university, in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Provi- 
dence Plantations," now Brown University, which declared 
that "the college estate, the estates, persons and families of 
the president and professors, for the time being, lying and being 
within the colony, with the persons of the tutors and students, 
during their residence at the college, shall be freed and exempt 
from all taxes." (1) This is the earliest precedent in Rhode 
Island for subsequent exemption of private schools from tax- 
ation. In 1774 a number of the inhabitants of East Greenwich 
were granted permision to conduct a lottery for the purpose of 
raising $600 for school purposes, ^'provided that no charge accrue 
to the colony thereby. " (2) So ends the colonial record. 

Early Town Support of Schools. 

The public school system of Rhode Island originated in the 
towns. Newport in 1640, one year after the first settlement 
there, called Rev. Robert Lenthal to keep a public school, 
granted him 104 acres of land and voted to set aside 100 acres 
of land "for a school for encouragement of the poorer sort, to 
train up their youth in learning, and Mr. Robert Lenthal, 
while he continues to teach school is to have the benefits thereof." 
(3) In public provision for education, Newport was scarcely 
twelve months behind Dorchester, Massachusetts, which in 
1639, levied a tax for school purposes. (4) In 1652 Warwick 



8 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

erected a buildiBg, which was used as a schoolhouse and a hall 
for town meetings. Providence, in 1663, voted to set aside 
100 acres of upland and six acres of meadow for school purposes. 
(5) Twenty years later John Whipple complained that the 
order had not been complied with, (6) and the following year 
William Turpin, who styled himself the toWh schoolmaster, 
(7) petitioned that the land be set out for him. In 1696 the 
same William Turpin and others were granted land for a school- 
house near what is now Olney street. In 1752 the town chose 
a committee "to have a care of the town schoolhouse," built 
some time previously on a lot designated for the purpose, as 
early as 1738; the town schoolhouse was let to the schoolmaster, 
who collected tuition from his pupils. (8) The town in 1768 
rejected a plan for a free school supported by public taxation. 
(9) Interest in free public education was revived after the 
War for Independence. President Manning of Brown Uni- 
versity was head of the school committee and prominent in the 
movement for better educatiohal**^cilities. The town in 1791 
adopted a plan for free schools drawn by President Manning, 
who died a few days previous to its presentation, (10) but 
the Town Council failed to carry the vote of the freemen to 
execution, and there the matter rested, in spite of a second 
vote of the freemen in 1795. Barrington, then a part of Massa- 
chusetts, in 1673 appointed Eev. John Myles teacher of a gram- 
mar school at an annual salary of forty pounds; and in 1682 
Bristol voted such part of twenty-four pounds per annum, as the 
schoolmaster did not realize from tuition paid by the parents 
of his pupils. 

The Act of 1800: The Beginning of Free Schools. 

In 1798 John Rowland, (11) a barber, whose shop was a resort 
for influential citizens, induced the Providence Association of 
Mechanics and Manufacturers to petition the General Assembly 
to establish free schools throughout the State. At the February 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 9 

session, 1800, it was enacted that "each and every town in the 
State shall annually cause to be established and kept, at the 
expense of such town, one or more free schools, for the instruc- 
tion of all the white inhabitants of said town, between the ages 
of six and twenty years, in reading, writing and common 
arithmetic, who may stand in need of such instruction, and apply 
therefor," (12) and that "for the encouragement of institutions 
so useful, there shall be allowed and paid to the town treasurer 
of each town or his order, out of the general treasury . 
twenty per centum of the amount of State taxes paid . 
by said town, provided the said sum of allowance of twenty 
per centum shall not exceed on the whole, the sum of $6,000 in 
any one year," (13) and that "if any town shall neglect or 
refuse to establish and keep free schools . . . such town 
shall forfeit all right to claim to the allowance aforesaid . . . 
(14). 

The act was repealed in 1803, Providence being the only town 
in the State which had complied with its provisions, and in 
Providence the prime factors in the establishment of free 
public schools under the act were John Howland and his friends. 
(15) April 26, 1800, the town of Providence voted $6,000 for free 
public schools, and on the third Monday in October, 1800, four 
free schools were opened in the town, with 988 pupils. (16) 
Tuition only was free; the pupils were assessed for fuel until 
1833, and required to furnish ink. After 1804 Providence 
provided books for children whose parents were too poor to 
buy them. Providence continued its free schools in spite of 
repeal of the act of 1800. 

Conditions Previous to 1828. 

Interest elsewhere slumbered. In 1820 the General Assembly 
called upon the several towns for information concerning public 
schools and awakened Newport. The town in 1820 had voted 
free schools, but had reconsidered the vote. In 1825 the 



10 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

town recei-\fed from the General Assembly authority to appro- 
priate money for free schools, this in face of a report that the 
town had misappropriated to other purposes the proceeds 
of school lands set aside in 1640. The free school was established; 
it had in 1828 about 200 scholars; there were in Newport in the 
same year forty-two private schools, with 1,100 pupils. In 
Providence, at this period, there were eight public schools with 
900 pupils, six or seven academies and eighty or ninety private 
schools; less than $5,000 was paid for public schools by town 
taxes, and doubtless double that amount for tuition in private 
schools. Elsewhere in the State there were 181 schoolhouses 
and ten academies, the number of winter schools, averaging at 
least three months a year, was 262. (17) Such was the condition 
when in 1828 the State enacted the second general school 
law. 

The Act of 1828. 

The school law of 1828 provided for the distribution of $10,000 
annually to the towns in proportion to their respective popu- 
lation (18) under the age of 16 years, "to and for the exclusive 
purpose of keeping public schools and paying the expenses 
thereof." Each town (19) was authorized to raise by taxation 
an additional amount not exceeding twice the amount of the 
State aid, and to appoint a school committee of from five to 
twenty-one members to supervise the schools. Provision was 
also made for the accumulation of a permanent State public 
school fund, to which $5,000 was appropriated immediately. 
Towns lost their right to participate in the distribution by failure 
to apply to school purposes the funds received from the State. 
In 1836 the interest on deposits of public money received from 
the United States (20) was set apart to be applied to support 
public schools, and m 1838 loans to the towns for educational 
purposes from the same fund were authorized. 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 11 

The Act Revised in 1839. 

The school laws of the State were revised and codified in 
1839, when the amount to be annually appropriated by the 
State "for the purpose of maintaining public schools" was 
fixed at $25,000, and it was provided that the money should be 
"applied to pay for instruction, and not for room rent, fuel or 
for any other purpose whatever. " (21) Additional school funds 
to be raised by town taxation were still limited to double the 
amount of State aid. The duties of school committees, of 
five to thirty members, were carefully prescribed. By act of 
1839 school committees were authorized to assess an amount 
sufficient to pay for fuel, rent and other incidental expenses, 
if not provided by any town by taxation or otherwise, upoa those 
who send scholars to the schools, exempting such as they con- 
sidered unable or too poor to pay. The law established the 
exemption rather than the practice of charging tuition, which was 
already in vogue. The State-aided public schools were not at 
this early date absolutely free schools. 

The first act aiming at compulsory attendance was passed 
in 1840, it being provided that no child "under the age of twelve 
years shall be employed to work in any manufacturing establish- 
ment , . . unless such child shall have attended at 
least three months of the twelve months next preceding such 
employment some public or private day school where instruction 
is given in orthography, reading, writing and arithmetic." 
School committees were authorized to appropriate $10 per 
district annually to establish and maintain school district 
libraries. By act of 1842 school committees were required to 
examine teachers previous to appointment, the earliest precedent 
for certification. 

An Appraisal. 

The pubhc schools of the period were still distinctly town or 
district schools, assisted by State appropriations. Neither the 



12 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

act of 1828 nor the act of 1839 was mandatory in defining t he- 
duties of the towns, as had been the act of 1800. Both were 
permissive and aimed to encourage the freemen of the towns 
to provide schools for their children; both acts limited the power 
of the towns to raise school funds by taxation. By failure to 
maintain public schools the towns lost a right to participate in 
the distribution of the State appropriations. In more than one 
instance previous to 1839 the General Assembly was compelled 
to enact a mandatory act, directing a town or district to build 
schoolhouses under penalty of forfeiting; its share of school funds. 
There was no agent of the State to supervise the expenditure 
of the State's school money. The appointment of such an 
officer must come in the natural course of events sooner or 
later; for State direction invariably follows State support. 
Action in Rhode Island was precipitated by publication of the 
United States Census of 1840, which disclosed 1}4% oi illiteracy 
in the State, contrasted with %o of 1% in the neighboring 
State of Connecticut. (22) The year 1843 is one of the most 
important in the history of the State. In that year Rhode 
Island put into operation a Constitution superseding the 
Charter of 1663. The Constitution, still in force, was not 
less significant for education than for politics. It declares: 
"The diffusion of knowledge, as well as of virtue, among the 
people, being essential to the preservation of their rights and 
liberties, it shall be the duty of the General Assembly to promote 
public schools, and to adopt all means which they may deem 
necessary and proper to secure to the people the advantages and 
opportunities of education." In the same year, 1843, the 
General Assembly authorized the Governor to appoint an 
age]it to investigate school conditions and report measures 
for improvement. The way was opened for the reorganization 
of the schools under Henry Barnard, who with his line of able 
successors, undertook for the schools of Rhode Island service 
no less valuable than that in which Horace Mann was engaged 
in Massachusetts. 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 13 

Henry Barnard, State Agent. 

Governor Feimer appointed Henry Barnard State Agent of 
Public Schools December 6, 1843. No half-hearted reorgan- 
ization was under way. To facilitate action by the towns 
and districts, the General Assembly at its January session, 1844, 
:authorized towns and districts to acquire land, and buy, build 
and equip schoolhouses and to levy taxes therefor without limit. 
The agent was instructed to prepare and distribute a document 
"setting forth the evils and defects of badly constructed school- 
houses and plans for the erection and arrangement of school- 
houses . . . sanctioned by extensive experience." One 
thousand copies of a document of 72 pages, with fifty wood cuts, 
were distributed. The agent was authorized to prepare a draft 
of a school law, the basis of the School Act of 1845, which is the 
foundation for the present school law of the State, and marks 
the beginning of a welding of the pubUc schools into a State 
system, becoming more and more thoroughly organized from 
year to year. 

The Barnard School Law. 

The school law of 1845 provided for — 

1. A commissioner of public schools to be appointed by the 
Governor. 

2. An annual appropriation of $25,000 for school purposes. 

3. The establishment of teachers' institutes. 

4. The establishment of a normal school. 

5. The certification of teachers by the Commissioner, or by 
county inspectors appointed by him, and by school committees. 

6. A minimum town school tax equivalent to one-third (23) 
of the State aid received, and no maximum limitation. 

The Commissioner of Pubhc Schools was authorized and 
■directed — 



14 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

1. To apportion State aid to town schools in proportion to 
the number of children under 15 years of age. 

2. To prepare and distribute forms for reports by town 
officers. 

3. To adjust and decide, without appeal and without cost 
to the parties, all controversies and disputes arising under the 
school laws, submitted (voluntarily) to him for settlement and 
decision. 

4. To visit and inspect schools and diffuse knowledge of 
existing defects and desirable improvements. 

5. To recommend text books and secure as far as possible 
uniformity in at least every town, and to assist when called 
upon, in the establishment and selection of books for free 
libraries. 

6. To report annually to the General Assembly on the 
condition of the schools, plans and suggestions for improvement, 
and other matters relating to the duties of his office. 

Towns were authorized to create and abolish school districts, 
provided that, without the approval of the Commissioner, no 
new district should be formed with less than forty children of 
school age, and none where graded schools might conveniently 
be established. In this respect the law of 1845 took over the 
organization already in existence. The district system was 
never in vogue in Providence, Newport, Bristol, Warren and 
Pawtucket. The General Assembly, by general act in 1884, 
permitted towns to abolisb school districts, and in 1903 abolished 
all remaining school districts (24) after January 1, 1904, save 
for purposes of winding up their affairs. (25) The local 
control of town and district schools under the act of 1845 was 
dual. The town elected a school committee with power and 
duty to define district lines, locate schoolhouses, examine and 
certificate teachers, visit and inspect schools, suspend and 
expel incorrigible pupils, prescribe general rules for the conduct 
of the schools, courses of study and text books, to apportion 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 15 

school funds to the districts (the State funds one-half equally 
and one-half on the basis of average daily attendance), and to 
report to the Commissioner and the town. No portion of the 
school funds, State or town, could be applied or used for repairs 
or fixtures of district schools. (26) The school districts had 
corporate powers and held the title to school property; direct 
control of the district schools was entrusted to trustees, who for 
the district had custody of the school plant, employed teachers, 
visited and inspected the schools. School districts were 
authorized to raise money for schools by taxation, and to fix a 
rate of tuition to be paid by the parents, guardians or employees 
of each child attending school, toward the expense of fuel, 
books and the estimated expense . . . not exceeding one 
dollar per pupil for each three months. The district schools 
obviously were not wholly free. The law of 1845 distinctly 
sanctioned the district, but preferred the town to the district as 
a unit for administering the schools. School committees were 
authorized to maintain schools in districts which failed for 
nine (changed to six in 1846) months to open a school. The 
district schools were elementary in grade. Secondary schools, 
called grammar schools, were authorized, to be conducted by a 
secondary school committee, the teachers for these to be 
certificated by the Commissioner of Public Schools or his 
county inspectors. 

No child could be excluded from a public school except by a 
general rule excluding all children under the same circum- 
stances, and in no case on account of the inability of the parent, 
guardian or employee of the child to pay the tax, rate or assess- 
ment for any school purpose. Persons aggrieved by any 
decision of a town, district or school committee had a 
right of appeal to the Commissioner, whose decision, when 
approved by a Justice of the Supreme Court, was final and 
conclusive. 



16 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

Henry Barnard, Commissioner. 

Henry Barnard was appointed Commissioner of Public 
Schools imder the new act, serving until 1849, when feeble 
health compelled him to retire. Mr. Barnard was then 38 
years of age; he lived for half a century thereafter, dying in 1900. 
Elisha R. Potter, who had been Mr. Barnard's assistant, 
succeeded him and carried forward the work in an able manner. 
Henry Barnard's "Rhode Island Institute of Instruction," in 
three volumes, epitomizes his work, and is a veritable mine of 
information on the subject of education at the period, with 
many suggestions for improvements adopted by the State years 
later. An Institute of Instruction was organized and has had 
a continuous exiscence. A normal school was first established 
under Commissioner Potter as a department in Brown Univer- 
sity in charge of Samuel S. Greene, Professor of Didactics and 
Superintendent of Schools for Providence, At a later time, in 
1852, a private normal school under Professor Greene was 
established in Providence. In 1854, the State, with the cooper- 
ation of the city of Providence, established a State normal 
school in Providence, which four years later was renioved 
to Bristol and discontinued in 1865. The Rhode Island 
Normal School of to-day was permanently established in Provi- 
dence in 1871. 

The State School Law was revised in 1851, when the annual 
appropriation was raised to $35,000, to be apportioned to towns 
raising by taxation at least one-third of the amount received 
from the State. Important advances in the law were these: 
A requirement that the erection and repairing of district 
schoolhouses must be according to plans approved by the 
School Committee or the Commissioner of Public Schools; 
that one or more teachers must be employed for every fifty 
scholars in average daily attendance; the exemption of school 
property from attachment or sale or execution in suits against 
districts, and authority granted any town to authorize its 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 17 

school committee to appoint a superintendent of schools. 
Providence had had a superintendent since 1839, taking rank 
as the first American city to employ expert supervision. 

The decisions of the Conmiissioners at this period are interest- 
ing. It was held that a schoolhouse is a house for educational 
and no other purposes, but may be used by a debating society ; 
and may be let by trustees to be occupied as a singing school, 
when such occcupation does not interfere with the ordinary 
school; (28) that neither a scholar nor a teacher could be 
compelled to build the schoolhouse fire; that a person holding a 
county certificate (granted by a deputy of the Commissioner) 
could be dismissed by a school committee for cause; that a town 
school committee may annul a teacher's certificate granted by 
it. Perhaps the most important decisions from the point of 
view of school law and procedure are two rendered by Chief 
Justice Ames. (29) One held that the Commissioner, after 
decision by a Justice of the Supreme Court, paay not order 
a rehearing. In its broadest application this and the second 
decision established the finality of the procedure for adjudica- 
tion of school questions under the school law. In Cottrell's 
Appeal, 10 R. I., 615, an earlier decision (Gardner's Appeal, 
4 R. I., 602) limiting the jurisdiction of the Commissioner on 
appeal to remedying grievances arising from infraction of law, 
was overruled. He may revise the action of school committees 
resting within their discretionary powers. Other decisions 
affecting the rights of districts, taxation, the rights of office- 
holders, etc., have an historical rather than a general interest 
in a period when the school district is an organization of the past. 

The Law of 1857. 

The revised law of 1857 increased the annual appropriation to 
$50,000, $35,000 to be apportioned in proportion to the number 
of children under 15 years, and $15,000 in proportion to the 
number of schools. The State money was designated "teachers ' 



18 SCHOOL LAW OP RHODE ISLAND. 

money," and must be used exclusively for teachers' salaries. 
Towns, to participate, must raise by taxation at least one-half 
(30) of the share from the $35,000 apportioned on the basis of 
population. Certificating teachers was placed solely with 
school committees or their agents, a retrogression from the 
State system foreshadowed in the provision for county certifi- 
cates in earher legislation. The law authorized the towns, to 
make needful provision for truants and children between six 
and sixteen having no regular and lawful employment. The 
city of Providence, except as to participation in the apportion- 
ment and distribution of school funds, was excepted from this 
act and subsequent State school legislation (until 1896). The 
school law of the State now applies alike to all towns and cities. 

A State Board of Education, 1870. 

Important changes in the schools and the administrative 
organization in the period of five years preceding 1872, are 
epitomized in the revised school law of that year and in the 
Common School Manual of 1873. The changes effected will 
appear in the following brief digest of the law of 1872: 

1. General supervision and control of public schools was 
vested in a State Board of Education (created in 1870) of six 
elected and two ex officio members. 

2.. The State Board of Education was empowered to elect 
a Commissioner of Public Schools, heretofore appointed by the 
Governor. 

3. The State appropriated $90,000 annually, to be appor- 
tioned by the Commissioner of Pubhc Schools, $63,000 in 
proportion to the number of children under 15 years of age, and 
$27,000 in proportion to the number of school districts. 

4. Towns, to participate in the distribution of State funds, 
must raise by taxation sums equal in amount to the money 
received from the State. 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 19^ 

5. Towns must elect school committees of not less than 
three members, one-third retiring and one-third to be elected 
annually, to manage the schools, and elect (or failing to elect, 
the school committee must appoint) a superintendent of schools. 

6. Plans for the erection and repairs of school buildings 
must be approved by the school committee, or, on appeal, by 
the Commissioner of Public Schools. 

7. One teacher must be provided for every fifty scholars in 
average daily attendance. 

8. Scholars must be supplied with books at the expense of 
the town or district if the parent, guardian and master failed to 
provide books after notification, 

9. The dual control by district trustees and town com- 
mittees was continued where the district system prevailed. 
The trustees were in direct control of the plant, the school 
committee examined the teachers, located schoolhouses and 
district lines, and apportioned the funds amongst the districts. 
The school committee also selected school books, but change 
could be ordered only on a three-fourth's vote of the committee, 
and then not oftener than once in three years without the con- 
sent of the Board of Education. 

10. Teachers must be certificated by the town school 
committee or by the trustees of the Normal School. 

11. The Commissioner of Public School's appellate juris- 
diction was continued. 

12. There was no longer provision in the law for charging 
tuition. The public schools of Rhode Island had become free 
schools. 

13. A State normal school was established (1871) under the 
management of the Board of Education and the Commissioner 
of Public Schools as trustees. 

14. Towns were empowered to legislate concerning habitual 
truants and children of school age growing up without regular 
and lawful occupation or growing up in ignorance. 



20 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

15. No person could be excluded from school on account of 
race or color or for being over 15 years of age, or except by 
general rule. 

16. Three thousand dollars was annually appropriated for 
the education of the indigent deaf and blind, a charge assumed 
by the State since 1845. 

17. The employment of minors under 12 years of age in 
manufacturing establishments or at labor incidental to manu- 
facturing processes was forbidden. No minor under 15 years 
of age could be employed in any factory establishment imless 
in the previous year he had attended school at least three 
months, nor for more than nine months in any one calendar 
year. The daily hours of labor for minors under 15 in manu- 
facturing establishments were limited to 11 hours, between 
5 A. M. and 7 P. M., with ten hours a legal day unless otherwise 
specified by contract. 

More briefly still, the important advances in the school law 
may be enumerated as these: More money for schools, from 
the State and from town taxes; the creation of a State Board of 
Education; the provision for expert supervision; the abolition of 
charges for tuition; the establishment of a State normal school 
and a fresh attempt at enforcing attendance at school of children 
under 15 years of age. The compulsory attendance act of 
1840 had disappeared from the statutes in the revision of 1844. 

Aid to Free Public Libraries. 

In 1875 the ^Board of Education was authorized to cause 
to be paid annually to and for the use of free public liJjraries 
. . . to be expended in the purchase of books therefor a 
sum not exceeding $50 for the first 500 volumes in each library 
and $25 for each additional 500 volumes, no library to receive 
more than $500 in any year; and to establish rules prescribing 
the character of books in and the management of libraries 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 21 

receiving State assistance. In 1878 the duty of taking an 
annual school census of children between 5 and 15 years of age 
was imposed on the towns as a condition precedent to receiving 
State aid for education. 

Parochial Schools. 

A new factor in free education was rising, with the establish- 
ment of parochial school by the Roman Catholic Church. 
These were not "free pubhc schools" as defined in the law and 
exempted from taxation, (31) but it was held ^^hat if a building 
devoted to religious purposes and thereby exempted from 
taxation, was used as a school also, the property was still exempt 
under the statute. (32) Ultimately the parochial schools were 
exempted from taxation by a general law (33) exemptmg 
from taxation "the buildings and personal estate owned by any 
corporation used for a school, academy or seminary of learning 
. . . and the land upon which said buildings stand and 
immediately surrounding the same, to an extent not exceeding 
one acre, so far as the same is used exclusively for educational 
purposes," except where the institution is conducted for- the 
profit of its owners and stockholders. The parochial schools 
have been brought within the State system by operation of the 
truancy law, (34) which permits attendance at approved private 
schools in lieu of attendance at town and city schools, and 
requires approved schools to register and make returns to 
school committees and truant officers in relation to attendance. 
By an act of 1892 private schools are required to register at the 
office of the State Board and to report annually, the Board 
providing registers and forms for the reports. (35) School 
committees may approve private schools or private mstruction 
for purposes of the truancy law only when they are satisfied 
that the period of attendance of the pupil in such school or 
upon su«h instruction is substantially equal to that required by 
law of a child attending a piiblic school in the same city or 



22 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

town; that the teaching in such school or such instruction in all 
studies except foreign languages, and any studies not taught 
in the public schools, is in the English language; that such 
teaching or instruction is thorough and efficient. (36) Otherwise 
these schools are not subject to town or State school regula- 
tions; the teachers are not certificated and are not within the 
minimum salary and pension laws; no expert supervision is 
provided, but the parochial schools are supervised by the well- 
educated pastors of parishes. No State or town aid is granted 
to these schools beyond tax exemption. 

The State School Law Made Mandatory. 

"The statutes of the State relating to free public schools do 
not make it the imperative duty of the several towns and 
cities to establish and maintain such schools, but create a 
general school system under which the several towns and cities 
voluntarily establish and maintain public schools, receiving 
from the State certain allotments of money to help defray the 
cost of instruction." (37) The Supreme Court thus analyzed 
the State law in 1881 ; when the statutes were revised in 1882, 
the words "shall establish and maintain . . . schools" 
were substituted for the words "may establish and maintain 
. . . schools," as used in earlier laws, and the privilege of 
the towns became a duty. The State had followed the now 
time-honored genetic law in the development of Rhode Island 
schools, first to aid and encourage, then to require. Public 
opinion had changed in three-quarters of a century. In 1803, 
it had been strong enough to force repeal of a State free school 
law. In 1828, it had been modified sUghtly and permitted 
enactment of a school law. The advent of Henry Barnard 
had created interest in better schools, but there can be little 
doubt that Commissioner Potter voiced public opinion in 1853, 
when in his annual report he praised the district school system 
as democratic and -^protested against active control by the 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 23 

State, and compulsory attendance as an invasion of the rights of 
individual liberty and the right to free and liberal thought. 
State control and compulsory attendance he characterized as 
first steps toward despotism. (38) The opinion of the Supreme 
Court in 1881 was stimulating; the law was changed forthwith. 
Those whom Commissioner Potter had called "zealous friends 
of education, who, being themselves much in advance of their 
fellow citizens, are very impatient that all others do not come up 
to their mark — are not ready to go ahead as fast as themselves," 
had finally prevailed. Fortunately for education there are 
always "zealous friends" anxious to push ahead. 

In 1884, the State 's annual appropriation for public schools 
was raised to $120,000, to be apportioned by the Commissioner of 
Public Schools on the basis of $100 for each school, not exceed- 
ing fifteen in any one town, and the balance in proportion to the 
number of children from five to fifteen years, inclusive, accord- 
ing to the school census. An annual appropriation of $3,000 for 
the purchase of encyclopaedias, reference books, maps and such 
apparatus had been provided earlier. The election of school 
superintendents was entrusted exclusively to school committees. 
Towns were required to "make provision for the instruction of 
the pupils in all schools supported wholly or in part by public 
money, in physiology and hygiene, with special reference to the 
effects of alcoholic liquors, stimulants and narcotics upon the 
human system," almost the only attempt at regulation of the 
course of study. . 

Free Text Books. 

Free text books and other school supplies were ordered by 
act of 1893. In that year the truancy law was revised. Chil- 
dren between the ages of seven and fifteen years were required 
to attend regularly a public day school at least 80 days, or an 
approved private school, and, when not lawfully employed at 
labor to attend the public schools or other schools when in 



24 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

session. Towns were required to appoint truant officers to 
enforce the law. The provisions regulating the employment 
of children of school age were strengthened. The employment 
of children under fifteen years of age unable to write name, age 
and place of residence legibly was forbidden. The principle of 
free public schools had been completely worked out when free 
text books and supphes were provided; the principle of com- 
pulsory education was established, but still needed legislation 
to perfect it. 

Advanced Legislation Since 1893. 

Important State legislation concerning free public education 
since 1893 has included: 

1. The transfer to the State Board of Education of exclusive 
power to issue teachers' certificates, (39) and subsequent 
legislation restricting the payment of State appropriations for 
teachers to schools employing exclusively teachers so cer- 
tificated, (40) the effect of these changes in the law being to 
place the regulation and control of the quahfications of teachers 
in the Board of Education, though the selection of teachers 
rests with school committees. (41) 

2. General provisions to secure a uniform high standard in 
the pubhc schools of the State : 

a. Making the minimum school year 36 weeks. (42) 

b. State aid for high schools— An act of 1898 (43) 
provided for the payment to towns maintaining high schools 
in which the course of study is approved by the State Board 
of Education, of $20 for each pupil in average attendance 
up to 25 pupils, and $10 per pupil for each pupil over 25 
and up to 50; and further, similar aid for towns not 
maintaining high schools which made provision for the 
attendance of town children at approved high schools in 
other towns or academies. In 1909, (44) the maintenance 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 25 

of town high schools or the sending of children to high 
schools elsewhere or to academies was made compulsory, 
State aid being raised to S25 for each of the first 25 pupils 
and to $15 for each pupil over 25 and up to 50. Town 
provision for high scbool education had thus become man- 
datory. A town receiving aid under this law must receive 
in its own high school up to normal capacity children from 
other towns in the State at tuition charges not to exceed 
the per capita cost of instruction. 

c. State aid for graded schools formed by the con- 
solidation of three or more ungraded schools in any town, 
or in several towns, $100 per grade being paid for each 
department showing an average number belonging not 
less than fifteen. (45) The town's share in the apportion- 
ment of teachers' money is not forfeited by consolidation. 
Similar aid is granted in instances where ungraded schools 
the attendance at which is less than twelve pupils are 
consolidated with graded schools. (46) 

d. Special State aid for payment of teachers' salaries. 
By act of May 7, 1909, (47) the minimum annual salary 
of a public school teacher is placed at $400, the State 
aiding the towns to extent of one-half the excess of $400 
over the salary previously paid. 

e. Direct State aid for school? in towns where taxable 
property is not adequate at the average rate of taxation 
throughout the State to provide pubhc schools of a high 
standard. (48) Money apportioned thus may be used 
"in the building or repair of schoolhouses, the furnishing 
of the same and in the purchase of school equipment, books 
and supplies and for the payment of teachers." 

3. Legislation designed to improve the preparation and the 
economic status of teachers and to make the emoluments of 
teaching more remunerative. 



26 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

a. The State certificate law, already mentioned. 

b. The minimum salary law, already mentioned. 

c. Pensions for teachers. (49) 

d. Improved facilities at the State Normal School, 
and additional aanual appropriations (50) for the distribu- 
tion of educational publications and for the expenses of 
teachers ' institutes. 

e. The provision of graduate courses in education in 
Brown University, for which $5,000 is expended annually 
under the direction of the State Board of Education, (51) 
for State scholarships aad graduate courses in the depart- 
ment of education in the university. 

4. State aid to enable towns to employ expert superin- 
tendents. (52) The State pays $750 annually toward the salary 
of the superintendent in any town which pays its superintendent 
at least $1,500 a year. The law permits two or more town school 
committees in towns in which the aggregate number of schools 
does not exceed 60 to unite in electing a superintendent of 
schools, and the State pays one-half the salary of such superin- 
tendent up to $1,500, that is, the amount paid by the State never 
exceeds $750. The tenure of superintendents is no longer 
limited to one year. (53) 

5. General provisions. 

a. For State aid for evening schools, approved by the 
State Board of Education. (54) 

b. For travelling public libraries and a library visitor, 
supported by an annual appropriation of $2,000. (55) 

c. For State aid in support of instruction in manual 
training and household arts and vocational industrial 
education. (56) 

d. For open air schools to be established by cities and 
towns. (57) — 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 27 

■. e. For medical inspection of public and private schools 
the State pays one-half the cost up to $250 in each town; 
and provides that superintendents shall cause to be made 
an annual examination of pupils for defects of sight and hear- 
ing. (58) The State Board of Education is empowered to 
approve proper standards of lighting, heating, ventilation, 
seating and other sanitary arrangements of school buildings. (59) 

6. More and more perfect legislation aimed at the preven- 
tion of truancy and compulsory attendance of children under 
sixteen years of age at school; regulation of the employment 
of children in factories and for factory inspection designed to 
enforce the law. (59) 

Purpose and Accomplishment. 

Briefly recapitulated, the school legislation in the twenty 
years since the free public school system was perfected by 
provision for free text books has aimed at — 

1. Improved provision for schools. State appropriations 
being apportioned and distributed in such manner as to 
encourage self-help, with special emphasis on directing the 
burden of State aid into communities less able than others to 
raise money for schools by taxation. The importance of the 
rural schools has been realized, and an attempt has been 
made to raise standards in these schools to keep pace 
with the advancing standards demanded in more wealthy 
communities. The minimum school year is 36 weeks. 

2. Increased efficiency in teaching, by providing better 
training for teachers and State aid to raise salaries, thus 
attracting a better grade of men and women to the profession. 

3. Expert supervision for all schools. 

4. Extending the public free school system to include high 
schools. 



28 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

5. The preservation of the principle of town responsi- 
bihty, but increased emphasis upon the duty of the State to 
assume its full responsibility to insure good schools for all its 
children, with equality of educational opportunity as far as 
practicable. 

Out of all this legislation has grown a system of free public 
schools, governed by the school law of the State, supported 
by its people and directed by the people's servants, both State 
and municipal. Besides providing for free public schools for 
normal children the State has made provision in special institu- 
tions for classes of defective children. It has also made provis- 
ion for special education for some of its youthful citizens in 
institutions supplying a higher grade of education in arts, 
crafts and sciences, and it has established a State College to 
the support of which it contributes annually in addition to the 
aid for the latter provided by the United States Government. 
The State maintains two libraries and aids other libraries and 
historical societies. How all these institutions combine to 
form an elaborate State system and what that system is will 
be set forth in the following chapter. 

Notes to Chapter I. 

1. For the construction of this exemption see Brown University vs. 
Granger, 19 R. I. 704, where it is held that the college estate includes 
real estate held as investments wherever situated and however used. In 
1863, the University consented to an amendment to its charter, limiting 
the exemption of the estates of the persons and families of the President 
and professors to $10,000. For the text of the charter see 6 Colonial 
Records, 385. The charter was declared to be a contract, 19 R. I. 704. 

2. 7 Colonial Records, 242. 

3. Callender's Discourse, Elton's edition, p. 116. And see Peterson's 
'History of Rhode Island" for a detailed record of Newport's schools. 

4. 21 Education, 535. W. A. Mowry: "The First American Public 
School." 

5. 3 Early Records of Providence, 35. 

6. 17 Early Records of Providence, 27. 

7. 17 Early Records of Providence, 54. 

8. See 19 R. I. Historical Tracts, 119-123, citing Staples' "Annals of 
the Town of Providence." The account in the report of the School Com- 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 29 

mittee of Providence, 1901, is based on Staples' "Annals," a standard 
authority, accurate as to matters reported. 
9. Staples' "Annals," 497. 

10. July 24, 1791. 

11. For a history of this remarkable man, see E. M. Stone's "Life of 
John Howland." 

12. Act of 1800, Section 1. 

13. Act of 1800, Section 4. 

14. Act of 1800, Section 6. 

15. Rowland's narrative of the episode is printed at page 150 in Stock- 
well's "Public Education in Rhode Island," and in E. M. Stone's "Life of 
John Howland." 

16. Report of School Committee, 1901, page 262, and Stockwell's 
History, page 155. The town population was 7,615. 

17. The figures are taken from a report prepared for the Rhode Island 
American and Gazette of June 16, 1828, reprinted in 2 Barnard's Journal, 
28, and Stockwell's History, p. 47. 

18. In 1831, the rates of distribution were determined by its population 
imder 15, and after 1832, the distribution was determined by the white 
population \mder 15, the colored imder 10, and five-fourteenths of said 
population, between 10 and 24 years. 

19. Providence at the same session was authorized to raise any amount 
of tax approved by the freemen. 

20. This was the Treasury surplus distributed in Jackson's adminis- 
tration. 

21. The origin of the State appropriation for "teachers' money." 
Chapter 65, Sections 1, 2, 3, Laws of 1909. 

22. Address of Wilkias Updike, member of the House, from South 
Kingstown, at the October session, 1843. See Barnard's History of 
School Laws of Rhode Island, 109. 

23. Henry Barnard advocated the present requirement — an amount 
equal at least to the amount received from the State. 

24. Act held constitutional. In re School Committee, North Smithfield, 
26 R. I. 165; confirmed 34 R. I. 526. And see Cranston, Petitioner, 18 

R. I. 417. ; 

25. Chapter 66, Section 2, General Laws, 1909. 

26. Decision No. 77, School Manual, 1896. 

27. Bicknell's History of the Normal School. 

28. Appeal of Barnes, 6 R. I. 591. 

29. Appeal of Smith, 4 R. I. 590; Crandell vs. James, 6 R. I. 144. And 
see CortheU's Appeal, 10 R. I. 615. 

30. An increase of one-sixth over the earlier law. 

31. St. Joseph's Church vs. Assessors of Taxes, 12 R. I. 19. 



30 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

32. St. Mary's Church vs. Tripp, 14 R. I. 307. 

33. Chapter 1260, Section 1, 1894; Chapter 56, General Laws, 1909. 

34. Chapter 363, Public Laws, 1883; Chapter 1213, Section 2, 1893; 
Chapter 72, General Laws, 1909. 

35. Chapter 63, General Laws, 1909, Sections 11 and 12. 

36. Chapter 72, General Laws, 1909, Section 2. 

37. Wixon vs. Newport, 13 R. I. 454. Approved Kelley vs. Cook, 21 
R. I. 29. 

38. Potter's Reports. R. I. Educational Magazine, 21-28, Jan., 1853. 

39. PubUc Laws, Chapter 544, May 4, 1898. General Laws, Chapter 
68. 

40. Public Laws, Chapter 1114, April 17, 1903, General Laws, 68. 

41. Public Laws, Chapter 1101, April 17, 1903; General Laws, Chapter 
67. 

42. Public Laws, Chapter 1097, April, 1914, amending Chapter 66, 
Section 1, General Laws, 1909. 

43. Public Laws, Chapter 544, May 4, 1898; General Laws, Chapter 74. 

44. Chapter 446, Public Laws. 

45. Public Laws, Chapter 544, but see Chapter 74, General Laws, 1909> 
Section 1, for a revision of this law. 

46. See Chapter 74, General Laws, for more details. 

47. Chapter 458, Public Laws, 1909. 

48. Public Laws, 1913, Chapter 947. 

49. General Laws, Chapter 69; Public Laws, 1909, Chapter 401; Public 
Laws, 1914, Chapter 1090. 

50. Pubhc Laws, 1913, Chapter 943. 

51. Public Laws, 1912, Chapter 839. 

52. General Laws, Chapter 6^; Pubhc Laws, 1912, Chapter 804. 

53. General Laws, 1913, Chapter 946. 

54. Chapter 65, Section. 10, General Laws, 1909; and Public Laws, 1914. 

55. Public Laws, 1911, Chapter 678. 

56. Pubhc Laws, 1912, Chapter 845. 

57. PubUc Laws, 1912, Chapter 816. 

58. Pubhc Laws, 1911, Chapter 725. 

59. Public Laws, 1913, Chapter 956. 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 31 

CHAPTER II. 

The Rhode Island School System. 

The system of schools in Rhode Island either directly estab- 
lished, maintained and controlled by the State, or required 
by State law and aided by State appropriations and subject 
to State supervision and control, comprises all grades from 
the lowest elementary to the Rhode Island State College. 

In Rhode Island perhaps longer than in any other American 
commonwealth, the notion has prevailed that the State arises 
from the union of smaller political commimities, only reluctantly 
yielding to the more scientific theory that the State is sovereign, 
paramount and first in order, and that towns and cities and 
other political divisions of the State are created by the State, 
endowed by the State with all the powers, privileges and rights 
which they enjoy and exercise, and subject to such duties as the 
State may impose. Sovereignty is as indivisible in its origin 
as in its personality. In education, as in politics, the towns 
and cities must be regarded as agents of the State holding 
school property in public trust, (1) and charged by the State 
with the duty of providing and maintaining schools. School 
committees exercise their powers under State laws, and are not 
subject to control by or interference in the exercise of their func- 
tions by the towns or town governments. Town taxation for 
school purposes must be regarded as a device for adjusting the 
burden of such taxation. No one presumes at the present day 
that taxation is evenly or equitably distributed if levied 
merely per capita or on property valuation as a basis. From 
the vantage of this point of view it becomes clear immediately 
that the schools now commonly designated as free public city 
and town schools, are actually free public State schools, subject 
to local control as authorized by tbe laws of the State and in 
matters not regulated by the State. The State's power to 



32 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

control is paramount. It specifies the nature of the school 
which the cities and towns must provide, the minimum period of 
the school year, the class from which teachers may be appointed, 
some portion of the course of study and standards for construc- 
tion and sanitation; it authorizes town school committees to 
prescribe the studies, subject to the direction of the Commis- 
sioner of Public Schools in the case of elementary schools, 
and the approval of the State Board of Education in the case 
of high schools; and it may go further along the line of regulation. 
The line of free public school development in Rhode Island, 
as indicated in Chapter I, started with the towns, and the free 
public schools might properly be called town and city schools 
until the school law was made mandatory in 1882. (2) Rhode 
Island still appropriates money for its schools in the form of aid 
for schools which it requires the towns and cities to establish 
and maintain, withholding assistance for failure to comply with 
its regulations. Only recently (3) has the State undertaken to 
aid particular town schools directly instead of by a general 
law and apportionment in which all might share by some variable 
ratio: The sum of $5,000 annually is now available for distri- 
bution for specific purposes by the Commissioner of Public 
Schools to towns whose taxable property is not adequate at the 
average rate of taxation throughout the State to provide public 
schools of a high standard. Conditions in certain rural districts, 
however, indicate that the necessity for mauitaining school 
standards may demand even more direct aid; that is, that the 
State may be compelled to assume for these districts a greater 
share of the burden of providing schools, or to adopt, for the 
poorer towns at least, a school system based on some political or 
other division larger than the town. In other words, the town 
system has become inadequate, as did the district system before 
it, and the demand of the time requires, a larger unit than the 
town for proper school support — probably no smaller unit than 
the State itself. (4) 



SCHOOL LAW OF EHODE ISLAND. 33 

Turning from the schools themselves to provisions for admin- 
istration, town and city school committees become, when viewed 
in proper relation and perspective, quasi-State officers respond- 
ing and reporting, not only to the towns and cities, but directly to 
the Commissioner of Public Schools, who is the Secretary 
and executive agent of the State Board of Education. The 
teaching force is trained, certificated and pensioned by the 
State at the expense of the State and teachers' salaries are paid 
in part from State appropriations. Appeal from the decision 
of local school boards lies to the Commissioner of Public Schools 
whose decisions, when approved by a single Justice of the. 
Supreme Court, have the weight of law. In spite, therefore, 
of apparently directly contrary language in the statutes, the 
free public schools of the cities and towns comprise a State 
system of free schools. The free State-town systems rise from 
primary to high schools, the town and cities being required to 
establish and maintain the latter or to pay tuition for children 
attending academies or high schools in other towns. (5) Free 
evening schools (in part supported by State aid) supplement the 
day schools. The system is completed by the Rhode Island 
State College. 

The Place of Private Schools in the State System. 

The State not only provides free public schools for those who 
wish to attend them, but it compels attendance thereat of 
children under fifteen years of age, or in lieu thereof ' accepts 
compliance with the spirit and purpose of the law by private 
instruction or attendance at schools maintained under auspices 
not strictly State or public. Private schools are required by 
law to register with the State Board of Education, to keep 
records in books, and to report to the Board upon blanks 
provided by the State. For purposes of the truancy and com- 
pulsory attendance laws, such schools must be approved by 
town or city school committees. The State regulates the 



34 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

conditions upon which approval may be granted. The courses 
of study must embrace in essential particulars the same work 
offered in free public schools, and the standards of efficiency in 
teaching must be such as to warrant approval, the test being 
comparison with the free public schools. Those schools as a rule 
are maintained by corporations chartered by the State, and are 
exempted from taxation. They must close for want of pupils 
if not maintained in such manner as to merit approval, or if the 
State accepted compliance with the law only by attendance at 
its own schools. Such schools may be visited and inspected by 
school committees, school physicians, medical inspectors, mem- 
bers of the State Board of Education and the Commissioner 
of Public Schools whenever deemed advisable, on penalty for 
refusing to permit visitation, of forfeiting tax exemption. 

Parochial schools are located in the cities generally and 
in larger population centres in the towns of Cumberland, East 
Providence, Lincoln, Warren and West Warwick. Thirty-five 
parochial schools and academies, maintained under Roman Cath- 
olic auspices, are registered with the State Board of Education. 
The attendance at these schools, in round numbers, is 17,000, 
and 350 teachers are employed regularly. Included in the 
list are seven schools graded as academies or secondary schools, 
and giving instruction beyond the elementary grades. In 
some places examinations under municipal control are conducted 
in parochial schools and diplomas are recognized for high school 
entrance. The law permits local school committees to set the 
minimum standard for parochial school instruction at the 
standard maintained in local public schools. The parochial 
schools, generally, are housed in finely constructed and well- 
equipped schoolhouses, comparing favorably with public 
school buildings of the same period. The investment in build- 
ings and school lands represents a munificent gift of the people 
of the State, numbered in the membership of the church, to 
education; while the upkeep and maintenance of these schools 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 35 

entails an annual contribution or voluntary tax bespeaking a 
strong social consciousness. 

Twenty-nine private schools are registered with the State 
Board of Education, including Brown University, seven 
secondary schools, and nine commercial schools or business 
colleges. These schools, as well as parochial schools, are subject 
to inspection and must maintain approved standards. The 
private schools of secondary rank come within the control of the 
State Board of Education in so far as the Board has the right 
to approve or withhold approval under the high school law. 

State Control of the Teaching Force, and Expert Supervision. 

Only teachers holding certificates issued by the State Board 
of Education may be employed in public schools; in this i-espect 
the paramount control of the State is emphasized. On the other 
hand the State, recognizing its duty, apportions $120,000 
annually to the towns and cities to be paid as salaries to teachers, 
assists the poorer towns to comply with its minimum teachers' 
salary law, and pensions teachers. Teachers must prepare 
reports requested by the Commissioiier of Public Schools. They 
may not be dismissed by the school committee without notice 
and a hearing, and may appeal from the school committee to the 
Commissioner of Public Schools. The State expends annually 
more than $150,000, for the training, certification and pensioning 
of teachers, including payment of the travelling expenses of 
normal school students, for teachers' institutes and educational 
publications designed to improve the teaching force. 

The State aims to require expert supervision of town schools, 
and aids each town employing a superintendent at a salary not 
less than $1,500 annually by paying $750 annually to the 
town; to groups of towns employing joint superintendents 
the State repays half the joint superintendent's salary up to 
and not exceeding $750 in any instances. The State has recog- 
nized that among the first principles of efficiency is fair 
compensation. 



36 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

State Provision for Training Teachers. 

Henry Barnard's school reports and most of those of his 
successors as Commissioners of Public Schools emphasize the 
importance of training school teachers. No system of public 
education is complete or practical without such provision. The 
Rhode Island Normal School, teachers' institutes, the Rhode 
Island State College and the graduate department of education 
at Brown University are essential integers of the free public 
school system. 

The State made no provision for training teachers previous 
to 1845; the school law of that year authorized the Commis- 
sioner of Public Schools to establish normal schools and teachers' 
institutes. Institutes were undertaken at once; under EUsha 
R. Potter, Henry Barnard's immediate successor, a normal 
department was estabhshed at Brown University, but a uni- 
versity which at the time admitted only male students obviously 
could not supply the trained women teachers whom Henry 
Barnard considered more desirable than men for common 
schools. The private normal school of 1852 and its offspring, the 
State Normal School of 1854, survived only to 1865, the State 
two years thereafter expending money for the training of 
teachers at academies. The present State Normal School 
dates from 1871, when the State Board of Education and the 
Commissioner of Public Schools were constituted a Board of 
Trustees, with authority to establish the school. The school 
is free to residents of Rhode Island qualified to enter upon the 
course of study offered, and the State appropriates $4,000 
annually to pay mileage for students resident outside Provi- 
dence. A model graded school is maintained in the building as 
an observation school for normal school students. The observa- 
tion school accommodates 350 pupils, for most of whom the city 
of Providence pays tuition equivalent to the cost of similar 
instruction in the city schools. In connection with and as part of 
the Normal School, the trustees maintain an extensive system of 



SCHOOL LAW OF ERODE ISLAND. 37 

training schools in all parts of the State. These are conducted 
in city and town school buildings under critic teachers selected 
by the training department of the Normal School, subject to 
the approval of the town or city school committee. Generally 
each critic teacher supervises teaching by two student teachers 
from the Normal School, each of whom has charge of a room for 
half a year before graduation. The State pays to each critic 
teacher a salary additional to the ordinary compensation in 
similar grades. 

The State Normal School has been educating women teachers 
almost exclusively. The condition described and lamented 
by Henry Barnard — common schools taught almost exclusively 
by men — has been reversed. The teaching force in the common 
schools in Rhode Island has become almost exclusively female. 
Need has been felt in recent years for men teachers and 
men trained for principalships, superintendencies and other 
administrative positions. Further than that, the Normal 
School has been educating teachers for the common schools; 
the State has felt the need of training teachers for high schools 
as well. An attempt to solve the problem resulted in 1912 in 
an act providing an annual appropriation of $5,000 and authoriz- 
ing the State Board of Education, in cooperation with Brown 
University, to provide graduate courses in education in the 
university for the training of high school teachers, principals 
and superintendents, part of the money being available for free 
graduate scholarships. The scholarships are not intended 
exclusively for men, nor granted exclusively to men, but men 
are being attracted to the department, and in large numbers, 
and the latest effort of the State for the improvement oE its 
teachers promises high success. 

State Education for Special Classes. 

In 1845 the General Assembly provided an annual appro- 
priation for the education of indigent deaf mutes and the indi- 



38 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

gent blind, at institutions outside the State. The appropriation 
has been increased from time to time, and the work has been 
extended and amplified. At the present time provision for the 
education of deaf mutes is made at the Rhode Island Institute 
for the Deaf, an institution maintained by the State and 
governed by a special board of trustees, of nine members, 
appointed by the Governor, with the Governor and Lieutenant 
Governor ex officio members. The school is open to deaf 
residents of the State between the ages of three and twenty- 
three years, under conditions regulated by the board of trustees, 
and attendance is compulsory for children between the ages of 
seven and eighteen years whose hearing and speech are so 
defective as to make it inexpedient or impractical to attend the 
public schools to advantage. 

For blind children, the Governor, on the recommendation 
of the State Board of Education, may provide by appointment 
as a State beneficiary at any suitable institution or school either 
within or without the State, and the State Board of Education 
is empowered to provide for the suitable care, maintenance and 
instruction of babies and children under school age, born blind 
or becoming bhnd, in cases where the parents are unable to 
properly care for, maintain and educate such children. The 
State Board of Education has available and expends also an 
annual appropriation of $3,000 for the instruction, at their 
homes, of adult blind residents of the State, thus completing the 
cycle of State care for the blind from infancy to adult age. 

For the feeble-minded the State has established a school at 
Exeter, under the management of the State Board of Education, 
in which a department is maintained for the instruction and 
education of feeble-minded persons within school age, and con- 
trol and care for feeble-minded persons beyond school age or 
incapable of education. This is a comparatively new institu- 
tion, dating from 1907. For many years previously the State 
had cared for the the feeble-minded in institutes of other states. 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND, 39 

For neglected and dependent children, not recognized as 
vicious or criminal, the State provides the State Home and 
School for Children, managed by a special board of control. 
The board has discretion to place such children in good families 
of the same religious belief as the parents of such children on 
condition that the child's education be provided for by the 
family in the public or approved private schools; or in suitable 
institutions maintained under other than State auspices, 
providing suitable educational training; and to provide for the 
education of children committed to the home. The purpose 
of the State Home and School is to care for children who 
otherwise must go to town or city poorhouses. 

At the Sockanosset School for Boys and the Oaklawn School 
for Girls, more commonly known as the reform schools, to which 
are committed children brought before the courts in juvenile 
criminal proceedings, splendid educational facilities are provided, 
the school work being supplemented by industrial' and vocational 
training. 

In such manner and by such means the State directly provides 
education for classes of children and some adults for whom 
there is no place in the free public schools. These special 
institutions round out and complete the State system of school 
education. Provision is made for everybody in some manner; 
the system may be improved by providing better facilities, 
raising the standard of efficiency and by improved content and 
method of education. The education of the feeble-minded 
and of the blind is directly under control of the State Board of 
Education; other institutions providing education for special 
classes are required by law to report annually to the State Board 
of Education "such facts as shall show the number of pupils 
and instructors, the courses of study, cost of maintenance, and 
general needs and conditions of the school or institutions." 
The reports of all such institutions are included in the annual 
"Ehode Island School Reports." 



40 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

State Provision for Special and Higher Education. 

Of the Rhode Island Normal School, Rhode Island State 
College, teachers' institutes, and graduate courses in Brown 
University mention was made in connection with the free public 
schools as parts of the system. High schools were linked with 
elementary schools as part of the system required by law. The 
State at the present time is attempting to encourage town and 
city provision for instruction in manual training and household 
arts and for vocational industrial training, and the Commis- 
sioner of Pubhc Schools has available an appropriation which 
may be distributed as State aid to towns providing facilities 
for such instruction. 

The State appropriates $16,000 for the Rhode Island School 
of Design, of which one-half is applied to maintenance and 
one-half to scholarships for persons of proper age, character 
and endowment. By this means the State provides regularly 
free special education for nearly three hundred of its youth, 
Two members of the State Board of Education are elected by 
the board as members of the board of trustees of the Rhode 
Island School of Design, the Commissioner of Public Schools 
serves as a member of the Executive Committee, and the Board 
of Education appoints beneficiaries under the appropriation. 
The School of Design, otherwise maintained by special endow- 
ment, and controlled by a quasi-public corporation, supplies an 
education in the arts and crafts invaluable in a State so largely 
dependent as is Rhode Island upon manufacturing industries. 

Rhode Island State College. 

In 1863 the State assigned to Brown University its appor- 
tionment of "scrip" under the Morrill act of 1862, under an 
agreement whereby the university was to provide a college or 
department of agriculture and mechanic arts. The university 
under the agreement provided courses of lectures on agricultural 
topics and the mechanics' arts, and the State appointed bene- 



SCHOOL LAW OF KHODE ISLAND. 41 

ficiaries for free scholarships in the university. In 1888 the State 
established a State Agricultural School at Kingston, and in 1890, 
at the request of Governor Davis, the Supreme Court rendered 
an advisory opinion (6) that Brown University was still entitled 
to the school money received under the Morrill act, because the 
State Agricultural School did not purport to be a "college of 
agriculture and mechanic arts." The Agricultural School was 
made a college in 1892, and an agreement was reached with 
Brown University by which Federal aid has been directed to the 
State college, the name of which was changed in 1909 from the 
"Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts" 
to "Rhode Island State College." The plant at the State 
College in 1913 was valued at $364,509.81. It is supported by 
direct appropriation and by the yearly income of several funds 
provided by the Federal Government, amounting to $93,500 
annually, and by an annual appropriation of $30,000 by the 
State. -None of the Federal money is available for land or 
buildings, and the plant is the State's own investment. The 
institution is governed by a board of managers, consisting of the 
Commissioner of Public Schools and six members appointed 
by the Governor. The College provides four-year courses 
leading to collegiate degrees in agriculture, engineering, 
applied science and in home economics. Courses of two years 
also are offered in agriculture and domestic arts. In addition, 
the work of the College embraces the extension activities 
of the U. S. Experiment Station and the Extension Department, 
for which the national government provides generous support. 
By an act of 1914 the Rhode Island State College is authorized to 
confer honorary degrees. Tuition being free to residents of the 
State, in the Rhode Island State College the State provides free 
collegiate education. The college is closely related to the 
public schools of the State, and may be classed as a part of the 
States's system of free public education, extending from the 
kindergarten to this college. 



42 SCHOOL LAW OF KHODE ISLAND. 

Brown University. 

The charter of Brown University was the first educational 
measure enacted by the Colonial General Assembly. In a 
period when higher education was almost exclusively under 
rigid denominational control, when even the public schools 
of the neighboring colonies of Massachusetts (with New 
Hampshire and Maine) and Connecticut were devoted to 
training children to ''read and understand the principles of 
religion and the capital laws, " (7) when a catechism made up a 
considerable part of the New England Primer, then almost 
universally the first and usually the last school reading book, the 
colony of Rhode Island endowed its college with a charter in 
catholicity and liberality unsurpassed and still one of the proudest 
possessions of venerable Brown University. The liberality of 
Rhode Island did not stop with breadth of religious toleration 
and earnest safeguarding of the principle of soul liberty for which 
Roger Williams left Massachusetts; Rhode Island exempted 
the college estate, wherever located within the colony and how- 
ever used or invested, from taxation, and still further, in gener- 
osity only infrequently paralleled, exempted the estates, persons 
and families of the president and professors of the college, and 
the persons of tutors and students, from all taxes, jury service 
and military service, except in case of invasion. Moreover, 
Rhode Island, without reservation or restriction, without 
attempt at control or influence through membership in the 
corporation, made the university self-governing. Rhode Island 
gave this university life and privileges and complete freedom 
for future development. The State, through its courts, has 
protected Brown University and in full measure insured complete 
realization of the original endowment. (8) 

Throughout a century and a half the university has been an 
important factor in education in Rhode Island. The men who 
projected the university were prominent in early movements 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 43 

for free schools in Providence. Presidents Manning, Sears and 
Wayland were intimately connected with public school organiza- 
tion and development. Professors and graduates of the univer- 
sity have enriched the intellectual life of the State. A long line 
of teachers and school administrators, a large proportion of the 
most influential men of the State, have been graduated from 
Brown University. The independence with which Rhode 
Island endowed Brown University has permitted the college 
to pursue educational policies broad in scope and to serve a 
community wider than the State. 

Between the State and the university relations are most 
cordial. The State Board of Education provides, in cooperation 
with the university, graduate courses in the principles and prac- 
tice of education designed for the professional preparation of 
superintendents of schools and high school teachers and princi- 
pals. An annual appropriation of this purpose maintains an 
educational laboratory, already equipped by the State; furnishes 
the university with the means for supporting a second profes- 
sorship in education, and provides graduate scholarships to 
which the State Board of Education makes appointments. 
Thus the university is directly linked to the State public school 
system in a definite connection through use of the graduate 
department of education as a teachers' college. 

Public Libraries and Books. 

The law empowers towns to establish, acquire and maintain 
free public libraries and to raise money therefor by taxation, 
or to aid established free libraries by appropriation of money 
raised by taxation, and the State Board of Education, since 
1875, has been authorized to apportion State aid annually to 
free public libraries maintained by towns or otherwise, on ihe 
basis of $50 for 500 volumes and $25 for each additional 500 
volumes, up to $500, the maximum permitted in any single 
instance. The Legislature appropriated $9,000 for the purpose 



44 SCHOOL LAW OF EHODE ISLAND. 

in 1914. The Board has power to estabhsh rules prescribing: 
the character of books which shall constitute a library entitled 
to aid, and regulating the management of such libraries so as 
to secure the free use of the same to the people. Towns may 
make provision for school libraries, and the Commissioner of 
Public Schools is authorized to distribute an appropriation of 
$4,000 annually as aid to school libraries, for the purchase of 
reference works, maps, globes, and other apparatus, to an amount 
not exceeding $10 per school or $200 per town. The Board of 
Education also maintains a system of travelling libraries and 
renders aid to libraries establishing branch or visiting libraries, 
and for this purpose and to provide for the visitation and exami- 
nation of free public libraries and the management of travelling 
libraries, expends $2,000 annually. 

The State maintains a State Law Library in Providence 
County Court House, for which it appropriates $5,500 annually, 
besides $1,600 for the librarian, and a State Library in the State 
House, supported by an appropriation of $2,550, besides $1,600 
for the librarian. In connection with the State Library a 
legislative reference bureau is conducted by the State Librarian, 
for which $3,000 is available annually. The legislative reference 
bureau is intended to furnish information for members of the 
Legislature, particularly with reference to legislation in other 
States. Under the direction of the State Librarian studies of 
State Legislation throughout the United States are made, and 
published in bulletins. 

The State publishes and distributes reports of its various 
departments and aids publicatio;n of quasi-public writings by 
special appropriations. To the Rhode Island Historical 
Society it appropriates $1,500 annually, and to the Newport 
Historical Society $500 annually, besides making these institu- 
tions depositories of valuable historical relics and of books and 
records. The State also appropriates $7,500 annually to certain 
humane societies. 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 45 

The Cost of Public Education. 

The buildings of State Institutions are valued at one and 
one-half millions, and it has a permanent school fund of a 
quarter of a million. In round numbers the value of public 
school property in Rhode Island is $10,000,000; the annual 
public expenditure for education exceeds $3,000,000, of which 
the State appropriates $530,000. Approximately one-fourth 
of the State's annual appropriations are made directly for edu- 
cation, this calculation including only money apportioned to 
schools and libraries, and excluding such items as $75,000 for 
State printing and binding of books and reports, and the money 
apportioned for departments which indirectly contribute to 
public education. 

The Machinery of Administration. 

The State Home and School, The Rhode Island Institute 
for the Deaf, the Sockanosset School for Boys and the Oaklawn 
School for Girls are managed and controlled by special boards 
which merely report on school matters to the State Board of 
Education. 

Rhode Island State College is managed by a board of trustees, 
which includes the Commissioner of Pubhc Schools, and is thus 
linked to the Department of Education. 

Two members of the Board of Education and the Commis- 
sioner of Public Schools are members of the Board of Trustees 
of the School of Design. 

The State Board of Education manages and controls the 
School for the Feeble-Minded, apportions and distributes State 
aid to free public libraries, registers private schools and provides 
rules and regulations for them, and cooperates with the univer- 
sity in maintaining post-graduate courses in education at Brown 
University. 

The State Board of Education and the Commissioner of Public 
Schools constitute a board of trustees of the Normal School. 



46 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND, 

The Commissioner of Public Schools apportions State aid 
to public schools, and has general supervision of free public 
schools throughout the State. 

City and town schools are managed and controlled by local 
school committees, subject to direction of the Commissioner 
of Public Schools, direct supervision for local purposes being 
entrusted to superintendents of schools. 

In spite of the apparently hopeless tangle there is an inter- 
locking of elements in the administrative system which centres 
control of it in the Board of Education and the Commissioner 
of Public Schools, but ultimately in the Board of Education, 
which elects the Commissioner of Public Schools. Some 
educational institutions the Board manages directly; others 
are brought within its supervision through membership on 
the boards of control or by the Commissioner of. Public School's 
membership; still others merely report to the Board of Edu- 
cation. The free public schools are directly under the supervision 
of the State Board of Education and the Commissioner of Public 
Schools. There is at once sufficient authority and sufficient 
centralization to unify the system of schools, and also sufficient 
flexibility to permit local initiative and progress. There are 
some advantages to be found in broad general laws and much to 
be said in their favor as contrasted with laws which from 
multitude of detail stifle individuality. The administration of 
the public school system in Rhode Island aims at interest, 
encouragement for self-help, cooperation, rather than at 
enforced authority. At the same time authority is not 
wanting, nor the power to make persuasion effective, through 
the State's power to withhold aid. 

The Position of the Commissioner of Public Schools. 

Were one to consult the public laws of the State under the 
title "the Commissioner of Pubhc Schools" one would find more 
than half of the title devoted to the duties of the Commissioner 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 47 

to prepare programs for observance of certain State holidays. 
Of thirteen sections devoted to the Commissioner, eight refer 
to holidays, and three provide for his election, the employment 
of an assistant and clerical assistance in his office. Two define 
his duties as visitor and inspector of schools, and command him 
to promote uniformity of text books. But duties assigned to 
him appear on almost every page of the school laws. He is 
one of the trustees of the Normal School, a member of the 
Executive Committee of the Rhode Island School of Design, 
and one of the managers of the Rhode Island State College, 
and as Secretary of the State Board of Education and in his 
capacity as Commissioner he has a multitude of duties to per- 
form. His supervisory powers extend to every public and 
private school in the State; he is the adviser and counsellor of 
superintendents and school committees; he may direct the course 
of study, he visits and inspects schools; he apportions State 
aid; he is the judicial authority for the adjustment of school 
disputes. Not the least important of his duties is the prepa- 
ration of an annual report of school conditions with suggestions 
for improvement. He is the expert adviser of the State Board 
of Education and indirectly of the Legislature on school matters, 
and a source from which originates much improved school 
legislation. He is also the State's recognized representative 
in interstate educational relations and in the State's educational 
relations with the United States Government. 

Some nature of the activities of the Department of Educa- 
tion, centralized in the office of the Commissioner of Public 
Schools and Secretary of the State Board of Education, may be 
gleaned from the twenty-four divisions of service : 

a. General supervision and control of pubhc schools. 

Rules for instruction and government of schools, 
courses of study, etc. 

b. Division of accounts: institutions and agencies; 

variety and extent of appropriations. 



48 SCHOOL LAW OP RHODE ISLAND. 

c. Reports of information and recommendations, 

d. Special reports. 

e. Training of teachers. Normal School, etc. 

f . Certification of teachers and superintendents. 

g. Teachers' institutes, 
h. Teachers' pensions, 
i. Public libraries. 

j . Travelling libraries. 

k. State scholarships. 

1. Education of blind. 

m. Education of adult blind. 

n. School for Feeble-Minded. 

o. Relations to State and private institutions. 

p. Publications. 

q. Appeals and approval. 

r. Registers, blanks, etc. 

s. Apportionment of appropriations. 

t. Board meetings, conferences and addresses. 

u. Interstate relations. 

V. Visitation of schools. 

w. Miscellaneous. 

1. See In re School Committee, North Smithfield, 26 R. I. 164, for 
a legal exposition of the points involved. Confirmed, 34 R. I. 526. 

2. See Wixon vs. Newport, 13 R. I. 454. 

3. Public Laws, 1913, Chapter 947. 

4. Indications of a trend in this direction are seen in the laws permitting 
joint school committees, joint school superintendents, sending of children 
from one to another town for school attendance. 

5. Chapter 74, § 2, as amended by Chapter 446, Public Laws, 1909. 

6. 17 R. I. 815. 

7. Law of 1647, Massachusetts. This law covered only the colony of 
Massachusetts Bay. The Plymouth Colony first undertook education 
as a pubhc function in 1663. Newport preceded both by its act of 1640. 
The Connecticut Statue followed the Massachusetts law of 1647 closely. 

8. Brown University vs. Granger, 19 R. I. 704. 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 49 

CHAPTER III. 

Rhode Island School Law. 

I. Definitions. 
II. Private Schools. 
III. Public Schools. 

A. Establishment and Regulation. 

B. School Lands and School Funds. 

C. The Administrative Force. 

I. The State Board of Education. Appoint- 
ment, tenure, organization. Powers 
and duties. 

II. The Commissioner of Public Schools. 
Election, tenure, salary and assistants. 
His ex officio offices. His statutory 
duties. 

III. Town and City School Committees. Elec- 

tion, tenure, organization. Powers and 
duties. 

IV. Town and City School Superintendents. 

Election, tenure and salary. Eligibility 
and Duties. 

V. Other School Officers, or Officers having 
duties to perform in connection with 
Schools or School laws. 

a. Factory Inspectors. 

b. Truant Officers. 

c. Medical Inspectors. 

d. Town Governments, Town Treas- 
urers, Town Clerks. 



50 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

D. School Property. 

I. Land and Buildings. 

a. Towns to provide. 

b. School Committees to locate. 

c. Condemnation. 

d. Title — changing town boundaries. 

e. Title — fee simple. 

f. State money not to be used for land 

and buildings. 

g. Exemption from process. 

h. Building laws and Sanitation. 
i. Use and abuse of school property. 

II. Apparatus and Books. 

a. Text books and supplies. 

b. Equipment. 

c. State aid. 

d. School libraries. 

III. Care, Maintenance, Repairs. 

E. School year and school holidays. 

F. School Finance. 

I. Sources of Revenue. 

a. General taxation and appropriations. 

b. State aid. 

c. Poll taxes. 

d. Dog licenses. 

e. Tuition. 

f . Sale of school property. 

g. Fines under the truancy law. 
h. Gifts and endowments. 

II. Custodian of the school funds. 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 51 

F. School Finance. — Continued. 

III. Payments. 

a. Who may order. 

b. What purposes. 

IV. Town's Liabihty for School Expenses 
V. Reports. 

G. School Teachers. 

I. Eligibility and Certification. 

a. Who may issue certificates. 

b. Conditions of certification. 

c. Examinations for certification. 

d. Revocation of certificates. 

e. Penalty for employment without cer- 

tificate. 

II. Selection and appointment. 

a. Who may appoint. 

b. Who are eligible to appointment. 

c. Tenure of employment 

d. Who may dismiss. 

e. Other termination of employment. 

III. Salaries. 

IV. Duties of the Teacher. 
V. Teachers' Pensions. 

VI. Jury Duty. 

H. Pupils. 

I. Right of Admission. 



52 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

H. Pupils. — Continued. 

II. Compulsory Attendance. 

a. School age. 

b. Responsibility of the child. 

c. Responsibility of the parent or 

guardian. 

d. Responsibility of the employer. 

e. Age and employment certificates. 

f. Exceptions. 

g. The law summarized. 

h. The machinery of enforcement, 
i. Penalties. 

III. Rights and Duties of the Child in school. 

a. Rights. 

b. Duties. 

c. Hazing. 

d. Services. 

I. The Course of Study. 
J. Appeals. 

I. General Provisions. 
II. Extent of the Commissioner's Jurisdiction. 

III. The Effect of Decision. 

IV. Enforcing Decisions. 

[Citations refer to chapters in the General Laws of 1909, unless otherwise specified. 
C 74 means Chapter 74, General Laws, 1909. P. L. means Public Laws. C. 946 P. L., 
1913, means Chapter 946, Public Laws, 1913. 14 R. I. 307 means page 307 in the 14th 
volume of Rhode Island Reports.] 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND, 53 

1. Definitions. 

School. — A school is a body of pupils in any place of instruc- 
tion under one or more teachers. As used in the Rhode Island 
statutes the term school means a body of pupils taught usually 
in one school room by a single teacher. It is on this basis that 
the State's appropriation of "teachers' " money is apportioned. 
(Decision 81, Manual, 1896.) As sometimes used the term 
school means an institution conducted in a single building. 
A graded school with eight schoolrooms, eight classes of pupils 
and eight teachers, in a single building, would be a school 
within the common definition, but eight schools under the 
statutes. The law has clung to the older notion of school 
developed under the district system; the common notion has 
attached the name school to the building. Both started with 
the one building, one teacher, one body of pupils organization. 
The law still looks to the teacher and body of pupils; the 
common definition to the building. (C. 74.) 

Free Public Schools, or Public Schools, means in Rhode 
Island schools supported by public taxation and controlled 
by public authorities. Parochial schools, though free, and 
other schools maintained by individuals or corporations, though 
charging no tuition, are not public schools. (St. Mary's 
Church vs. Tripp, 14 R. I. 307.) 

High School. — The Statute distinguishes high schools (C. 74, 

2, as amended by C. 446, P. L. 1909), and public schools (C. 
66, s. 1) without indicating a difference. Recourse must be had, 
therefore, to the common understanding of the terms in the 
State. High school means a school offering a course or courses 
beyond the elementary grades, that is, beyond the merely 
fundamental content of education taught in primary and 
grammar schools. In doubtful instances, decision as to the 
rating of schools rests with the Commissioner of Public Schools 
and the Board of Education. 



54 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

School Officers. — The Members of the State Board of Edu- 
cation, the Commissioner of Public Schools, town and city school 
committees, superintendents, and persons officially connected 
with the government or direction of the public schools are 
school officel-s within the statute. (C. 73, s. 7-8.) The 
superintendent is not a civil officer ; he is merely the agent of 
the school committee; hence, he need not be a citizen. A 
woman is eligible. (School Manual, 1896, p. 324.) 

II. Private Schools. 

Private schools may be incorporated under general law 
(C. 212) by five or more persons of lawful age, at an expense 
of six dollars for fees paid to State officers. Such corporations 
are subject to the State's general laws regulating corporations 
(C. 213), and are entitled to take, hold, transmit and convey 
real and personal estate to an amount not exceeding $100,000, 
unless the General Assembly shall extend the power by special 
law. The General Assembly may incorporate private schools 
or colleges by special chairter, older institutions in the State 
having such charters. 

All private schools within the State not conducted for gain 
are exempt from public taxation, both as regards personal 
estate, buildings actually used exclusively for educational 
purposes and the land on which such buildings stand and 
surrounding said building to the extent of not exceeding one 
acre. (C. 56, s. 2, as amended by C. 769, s. 38, P. L. 1912.) 

Private schools are required to register with the State Board 
of Education and to report annually in July to the State Board 
the number of different pupils enrolled, the average attendance 
and the number of teachers employed, the Board supplying 
registers and blank forms for reports. (C. 63.) Attendance 
of children of school age at private schools is permitted as 
compliance with the truancy law only if the courses of study, 
efliciency of teaching and conduct of the schools is approved by 



SCHOOL LAW OP RHODE ISLAND. 55 

local school committees as substantially equal to the public 
schools. (C. 72.) Indirectly the standard is set by the State, 
for local public school courses are legally under the direction 
of the Commissioner of Public Schools. Private schools are 
open to visitation and inspection by the State school officers and 
local school officers, under penalty of forfeiting tax exemption. 
(C. 73.) These schools are protected from nuisances (C. 73), 
injury (C. 345), disturbance (C. 344), and in the case of paro- 
chial schools, as in that of public schools, no liquor license may 
be granted within 200 feet on any travelled way. (C. 123.) 

III. Public Schools. 

A. Establishment and Regulation. 

The historical development of the free public school system 
of the State was outlined in Chapter I, and in Chapter II, 
a description of the system in Rhode Island was presented. 
The free public schools of the State, aside from special schools 
and schools for special classes, are established by towns and 
cities under mandatory statutes (C. 66 and C. 74), and are 
supported partly by State appropriations apportioned to the 
towns and cities, and partly by direct taxation in the cities and 
towns, the amount to be raised by each town to equal at least 
the amount received from the State. Schoolhouses and school 
property are acquired and owned by the towns (C. 66.) Town 
schools are controlled by school committees, elected by the 
people (C. 66), and supervised by superintendents elected by 
the school committees (C. 66), but are subject to supervision by 
the Commissioner of Public Schools and the State Board of 
Education. 

School committees may make reasonable regulations and 
rules for the conduct of schools, prescribe courses of study 
subject to the direction of the Commissioner of Public Schools, 
and engage teachers from among those holding State certifi- 
cates. The expenditure of school money generally is entrusted 



56 SCHOOL LAW OF EHODE ISLAND. 

to school committees, with power to locate, erect and enlarge 
schoolhouses for which money has been appropriated by the 
town, and power of eminent domain in acquiring title (C. 75). 
In Providence money for the purchase of land for schools, the 
improvement of the same and the construction and repair of 
school buildings is expended by the City Council. (C. 73, s. 6.) 
This regulation is peculiar to Providence. An attempt by the 
City Council of Pawtucket to assume similar control of expendi- 
tures of money for repairs on schoolhouses was checked by 
mandamus (Times PubHshing Company vs. White, 23 R. I. 
334). Similarly an ordinance of the city of Cranston fixing the 
salaries of teachers was held not to bind the school committee, 
whose power to employ teachers was declared inclusive of the 
right to fix salaries (Hardy vs. Lee, May 1, 1914). The powers 
and duties of school committees will be treated more in detail 
under that title. 

B. School Lands and School Funds. 

The State of Rhode Island has no school lands, as the term 
is understood in other than the thirteen original States. School 
lands west of the AUeghanies means land set aside from the 
public lands for school purposes. Beginning in 1785 the 
Federal Government adopted the policy of reserving lot 16 in 
each township for school purposes. Under the Morrill Act of 
1862, Rhode Island received land scrip, which it might assign, 
but which the State itself could not use to secure title to public 
land. 

The State has a permanent school fund of nearly a quarter of 
a miUion dollars, of which the State Treasurer is the custodian 
and which he is directed by law to invest in bank stocks and 
town bonds. (C. 40.) The fund is increased each year by fees 
paid to the State by auctioneers, and by money appropriated 
for the support of pubhc schools and forfeited by the towns, if 
any. Additions are invested by the State Treasurer with 



SCHOOL LAW OF EHODE ISLAND. 57 

the advice of the Governor. The income from the fund is 
annually appropriated for the support of schools. (C. 40.) 
Other disposition of income or of the fund itself is forbidden by 
the Constitution (Article XII), which styles the school fund a 
permanent fund, and forbids the General Assembly to divert it 
from school uses, or to "borrow, appropriate or use the same, or 
any part thereof, for any other purpose, under any pretence 
whatsoever." 

C. The Administrative Force. 
I. The State Board of Education. 

The State Board of Education consists of the Governor 
and Lieutenant Governor, ex officio, and six members, two from 
Providence County and one each from the other counties of the 
State. The members of the Board are elected by the General 
Assembly. The time of election and the tenure of members of 
the board is at the present time in a process of transition from 
annual election and three-year tenure to biennial election and 
six-year tenure. When the change is completed, the General 
Assembly, in grand committee, will elect two members of the 
board every two years for terms of six years. The members of 
the board receive no compensation, but the State pays the 
necessary expenses of the members and the Secretary of the 
board incurred in the discharge of their official duties. (See 
C. 63, s. 1, 2, 3, 15, and C. 828, P. L. 1912.) 

The Governor is President and the Commissioner of Public 
Schools is Secretary of the State Board of Education. The 
board is required by law to meet quarterly in March, June, 
September and December at the office of the Commissioner, but 
may hold special meetings at the call of the President or Secre- 
tary. (C. 63, s. 4 and 5.) The Attorney General is its legal 
adviser. (C. 23, s. 4; Newport PoHce Commission, 22 R. I. 
454.) 



58 SCHOOL LAW OF EHODE ISLAND. 

The powers and duties of the State Board of Education are: 

1. To maintain general supervision and control of the 
pubhc schools of the State, with such high schools, normal 
schools and normal institutes, as are or may be established and 
maintained directly or in part by the State. (C. 63, s. 1.) 

2. To elect a Commissioner of PubUc Schools. (C. 63, s. 1.) 

3. To prescribe and cause to be enforced all rules and regu- 
lations necessary for carrying into effect the laws in relation to 
pubhc schools. (C. 63, s. 5.) 

4. To apportion to the several towns the annual State 
appropriation for evening schools. (C. 65, s. 10.) 

5. To provide registers for private schools and blanks for 
the reports required from these schools. (C. 63, s. 12.) 

6. To approve courses of study in high schools. (C. 74, 
s. 2; C. 446, P. L. 1909.) 

7. To apportion State aid, upon recommendation of the 
Commissioner of Public Schools, to towns whose taxable prop- 
erty is not sufficient at the average rate of taxation throughout 
the State to provide pubhc schools of high standard. (C. 947, 
P. L. 1913.) 

8. To apportion State aid to towns establishing instruction 
in manual training and household arts and courses in vocational 
industrial education. (C. 845 P. L. 1913.) 

9. To apportion State aid to towns providing medical 
inspection of public and private schools. (C. 725, P. L. 1911.) 

10. To approve standards of lighting, heating, ventilating, 
seating and other sanitary arrangements of school buildings, and 
proper regulations concerning the same, and communicate the 
same to towns and city authorities having charge of the erection, 
alteration and equipment or furnishing of school buildings. 
(C. 725, P. L. 1911.) 



SCHOOL LAW OF EHODE ISLAND. 59 

11. With the Commissioner of Pubhc Schools to manage 
the State Normal School, admit students thereto and pay the 
travelling expenses of students. (C. 71.) 

12. To establish graduate courses in education in Brown 
University and to appoint to State scholarships in the depart- 
ment thus established. (C. 63, s. 17, 18, 19; C. 839, P. L. 1912.) 

13. To issue certificates of qualification to persons eligible 
for employment as teachers in town and city schools, to grade 
certificates, to examine applicants for certificates or to issue 
certificates without examination upon presentation of other 
evidence of qualification. (C. 68, s. 1, 2, 3.) The board may 
annul teachers ' certificates after notice and an opportunity for 
hearing. (C. 68, s. 4.) 

14. To issue certificates of qualification to persons eligible 
for employment as superintendents by towns and cities. (C. 
66, s. 10.) 

15. To administer the teachers' pension law. (C. 69.) 

16. To supervise the payment of State aid to the Rhode 
Island School of Design. To appoint two of its members, 
members of the board of directors of the School of Design. 
To appoint State beneficiaries to scholarships at the school. 
(C. 77, s. 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7; C. 824, P. L. 1912; C. 967, P. L. 
1913.) 

17. To supervise the education of deaf, blind and imbecile 
children of school age, and the care, maintenance and instruction 
of children under school age, born blind or becoming blind. 
(C. 100; C. 945, P. L.) 

18. To provide for the education of the adult blind in their 
homes. (C. 63, s. 16; C. 680, P. L. 1911.) 

19. To manage and control the Rhode Island School for the 
Feeble-Minded. (C. 103.) 

20. To apportion aid to free pubUc libraries. (C. 63, s. 6 
and 7.) 



60 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

21. To establish and aid travelling libraries and provide' 
for visitation and examination of free public libraries. (C. 63, 

s. 8.) 

22. To present a financial report annually to the State 
Auditor. (C. 44, s. 42; C. 582, P. L. 1910.) 

23. To report annually to the General Assembly. (C. 63, 
s. 14.) 

The State Board of Education receives annual reports from 
all educational institutions supported wholly or in part by the 
State, and from private schools, and may visit, inspect and 
examine these at pleasure. 

II. The Commissioner of Public Schools. 

The Commissioner of Public Schools is elected annually by 
the State Board of Education. (C. 63, s. 1; C. 64, s. 1.) 
With the approval of the Board he appoints an assistant com- 
missioner (C. 64, s. 13), and employs clerical assistance (C. 64, 
s. 2; C. 726, P. L. 1911). The salaries of the Commissioner 
and his assistants are fixed by the State Board (C. 64, s. 13), 
under an annual appropriation. The duties of the Assistant 
Commissioner are not defined in the law beyond aiding the 
"Commissioner of Public Schools in the discharge of his duties." 
(C. 64, s. 13.) [Note. (C. 64, s. 13, is added to C. 64 by C. 567, 
P. L. 1910, and amended by C. 828, P. L. 1912.)] 

The Commissioner of Public Schools is ex officio Secretary 
of the State Board of Education, one of the Board of Trustees 
of the State Normal School (C. 71), and one of the Board of 
Managers of the Rhode Island State College. (C. 76). His 
powers and duties arise from his own office and his ex officio 
offices. His duties as Commissioner are numerous; his position 
as Secretary of the State Board of Education makes him the 
executive representative of the Board, and his office the head- 
quarters of the State department of education. The Attorney 
General is his legal adviser. (C. 23, s. 4; 22 R. I. 658.) 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 61 

His powers and duties as Commissioner of Public Schools 
prescribed by statute are these: 

1. To visit as often as practicable every town in the State 
for the purpose of inspecting the schools, and diffusing as widely 
as possible, by public addresses and personal communications 
with school officers, teachers and parents, a knowledge of the 
defects, and of any desirable improvement, in the adminis- 
tration of the system and the government and instruction of the 
schools. (C. 64.) 

2. To recommend and bring about, as far as practicable 
a uniformity of text books in the schools of all the towns. 
(C. 64.) 

3. To apportion $120,000 annually As "teachers' money," 
to the towns which before July first appropriate an amount 
equal to the State aid for school purposes, and to draw orders 
on the State Treasurer for the payment thereof. (C. 65.) 

4. To approve applications for State aid to high schools 
and to towns consolidating ungraded schools and establishing 
graded schools, and to certify the amounts to be paid to the 
State Auditor, who shall draw orders on the General Treasurer 
for the payment of the same. (C. 74, s. 1, 2, 3, 5.) 

5. To apportion not exceeding $4,000 annually to towns to 
aid in the purchase of dictionaries, encyclopaedias, reference 
works, maps, globes and other apparatus. (C. 65.) 

6. To apportion State aid for the payment of the salaries of 
superintendents elected by joint school committees, or to towns 
not united paying at least $1,500 annually for supervision. 
(C. 66.) 

7. To enforce the teachers' certificate law by withholding 
State aid where teachers without certificates are employed. 
(C. 68.) 

8. To provide teachers' institutes and lectures for teachers' 
institutes. (C. 71.) 



62 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

9. To provide lectures on educational topics, publish and 
distribute educational publications and promote the interest of 
education in the State. (C. 71; C. 943, P. L. 1913.) 

10. To supervise the free pubhc schools generally. (C. 66.) 

11. To direct courses of study to be prescribed by town 
school committees. (C. 67.) The statute says that school 
committees shall prescribe the studies to be pursued, under the 
direction of the Commissioner of Public Schools. The pro- 
cedure which should be followed invariably requires school 
committees to submit courses of study to the Commissioner for 
advice and approval. 

12. To furnish test cards, appliances, blanks, record books 
and rules for conducting sight and hearing tests of children 
in pubhc schools. (C. 725, P. L. 1911.) 

13. To furnish blanks for the taking of the school census 
(C. 66), and for the annual reports required from town school 
committees. (C. 67.) 

14. Under the law regulating the issuing of age and employ- 
ment certificates to children of school age (C. 956, P. L. 1913) 
as Secretary of the State Board of Education, to determine 
what evidence of the age of the child shall be received in lieu of 
the documentary evidence otherwise prescribed. 

15. To draw orders, approved by the State Board of Edu- 
cation, on the General Treasurer, for payment of State aid to 
free public libraries. (C. 63.) 

16. To assist in the establishment and selection of books for 
free pubhc libraries. (C. 64.) 

17. To prepare a printed program providing for a uniform 
salute to the flag to be used daily during the session of the 
school, and programs for the proper observance of Grand Army 
Flag Day, Rhode Island Independence Day and Arbor Day 
(C. 64), and to distribute printed copies to school committees. 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 63 

18. To formulate a uniform code for fire drills. (C. 68; 
C. 797, P. L. 1912.) 

19. To hear and decide appeals from the decisions of acts of 
school committees, or other matters arising under the school 
law and to prescribe rules regulating the time and manner of 
appeals. He may, or upon request, shall, lay a statement of 
facts and his decision before one of the judges of the Supreme 
Court, whose decision is final. (C. 70.) Appeals are con- 
sidered more in detail in a subsequent paragraph under the title 
"appeals." 

20. To remit fines and penalties ,and forfeitures (by and 
, with the consent of the State Board of Education) incurred by 

towns or other persons in school disputes, except State money 
forfeited by failure of a town to raise its proportion of school 
money. (C. 70, s. 6.) 

21. To report to the State Treasurer forfeitures of school 
money. (C. 65.) 

22. To report to the State Auditor various expenditures. 
(C. 71.) To report annually to the State Auditor a complete 
and itemized statement of all bills and accounts incurred, due 
and remaining unpaid, together with a statement of unexpended 
balances of appropriations. (C. 44, s. 42; C. 582, P. L. 1910.) 

23. To report annually in December to the State Board of 
Education upon the State and condition of the schools and of 
education, with plans and suggestions for the improvement of 
the schools. (C. 64.) 

III. School Committees. 

Control of town and city schools is entrusted to a school 
committee in each town. The general law for the election of 
school committees (C. 66, s. 4), provides for a committee of at 
least three members for each town, one of whom is elected 
annually, or of a greater number divided into three classes, one 



64 SCHOOL LAW OP EHODE ISLAND, 

class elected annually. The size of school committees varies 
from town to town, and the influence of the biennial election 
law already has resulted in some instances in extending the 
tenure of office to six years, with biennial election of one-third of 
the committees. The school committee is the only civil office 
in the State to which any person other than a qualified elector is 
eligible (Constitution, Article IX). Hence, women are eligible 
to election to the school committee. School committeemen as 
a rule receive no compensation for services. They are forbidden 
to receive fees, gratuities, donations or compensation from 
persons interested in the sale of text books (C. 73), and are 
ineligible for employment as teacher or principal in any school 
supported entirely or in part by public money in any form. 
(C. 68.) 

The powers and duties of school committees as enumerated 
in the statutes are these: 

1. Exclusively to care for, control and manage, subject to 
the supervision of the Commissioner of Public Schools (C. 66, 
s. 1), all the public school interests of their respective towns 
and to draw all orders for the payment of their expenses (C. 67, 
s. 9; 2 R. I. 120; 11 R. I. 537; 23 R. I. 334; 26 R. I. 165; 
Hardy vs. Lee, Supreme Court, May 1, 1914). 

2. To organize by choice of a chairman and clerk, and to 
hold at least four regular meetings annually. (C. 67, s. 1 and 2.) 

3. To visit, by one or more of their number, every public 
school in the town at least twice in each term, examine registers 
and matters touching the schoolhouse, library, studies, books, 
discipline, modes of teaching and improvement of the school. 
(C. 67, s. 5.) 

4. To elect a superintendent of schools, to perform under 
the advice and direction of the committee, such duties and to 
exercise such powers, as the committee shall assign him, at a 
salary to be fixed by the school committee (C. 66, s. 5, as 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 65 

amended by C. 946, P. L. 1913. See In re Pawtucket School 
Committee, 27 R. I. 596). But two or more towns in which the 
aggregate number of schools does not exceed 60 may unite to 
employ jointly one superintendent for both towns. (C. 66, s. 6 
and 7, as amended by C. 804, P. L. 1912.) The towns of 
Narragansett and South Kingstown are the only towns in the 
State at this writing employing a joint superintendent. It 
might be questioned seriously if a town school committee could 
delegate its own duty to visit and inspect schools to its super- 
intendent, were the statutory requirement (C. 67, s. 5) not 
positive in fixing the duty of the committee. The committee's 
duty is performed, however, in entrusting the duty of visitation 
and inspection of particular schools to individual members; 
visitation and inspection then rests with the member. 

5. To make rules and regulations for the attendance and 
classification of the pupils, for the introduction of text books 
and works of reference, and for the instruction, government 
and discipline of the public schools. (C. 67, s. 6.) 

6. To locate all schoolhouses. (Dube vs. Peck, 22 R. I. 
443; Dube vs. Dixon, 27 R. I. 115.) Gardner's Appeal, 4 R. I. 
602, holding that the Commissioner of Public Schools may not 
reverse the decision of a school committee locating a school- 
house, or the decision on any other matter which is in the com- 
mittee 's discretion, his appellate jurisdiction extending merely 
to correcting grievances arising from invasion of rights or 
violation of law, is overruled in Cottrell's Appeal, 10 R. I. 615. 
The school committee 's choice of a site need not precede action 
of the town authorizing purchase and construction. (Rowland 
vs. Little Compton, 15 R. I. 184.) But it is the town's 
duty to provide schools and to authorize construction and 
enlargement. That is, the town votes that there shall be a 
schoolhouse. The school committee then, in ordinary course, 
locates the schoolhouse, and may start condemnatory proceed- 
ings (C. 75), against owners with whom it cannot agree as to 



66 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

price. A schoolhouse is not a nuisance; locating it next to one's 
property is not a grievance. (Dec. 78, Manual, 1896.) The 
construction of buildings generally falls under the supervision 
of the school committee, and the money appropriated is paid 
upon its order (23 R. I. 334), except in Providence, where the 
expenditure of money appropriated for the construction and 
repairs of schoolhouses, rests with the City Council. (C. 73, 
s. 6.) 

7. To abandon and change the location of schoolhouses, 
but to do neither without good cause (C. 67, s. 3). Disuse of 
a schoolhouse, even for a period of several years, is not an 
abandonment of the building for school purposes which will 
forfeit the property under a deed granting the estate for use 
exclusively as school property. (East Greenwich vs. Gimmons, 
34 R. I. 256.) Abandoning a schoolhouse and closing a school 
are not synonymous or equivalent; thus transferring a teacher 
and pupils to another building might be an abandonment of the 
earlier location, but would not be the closing of a school. The 
power to close schools by consolidating with other schools, 
thus still complying with the town's duty to provide schools, 
rests with the towns (C. 74, s. 1); unless the average number 
belonging falls below 12. In that event the school committee, 
subject to the approval of the Commissioner of Public Schools, 
may consolidate any schools where the average number belonging 
to each is less than 12, or may unite such schools with other 
schools, to establish a graded school or to secure greater effi- 
ciency, the school committee providing transportation for 
pupils in its discretion. (C. 74, s. 7.) An act of a school com- 
mittee closing a school to which the average number belonging 
is more than 12 is void. (Kent vs. School Committee of East 
Providence, 36 R. I.) 

8. To provide each schoolhouse with a United States flag 
and to cause the flag to be displayed during school hours, 
(C. 67, s. 14, 15.) No flag or emblem of any foreign country 



SCHOOL LAW OP EHODE ISLAND. 67 

may be displayed upon any public schoolhouse. (C. 349, 
s. 38.) 

9. To provide free text books and supplies for pupils (C. 67, 
s. 12), and to dispose of text books after use. (C. 944, P. L. 
1913.) The duty to provide free text books is mandatory; a 
school committee has power to incur expense on the credit of 
the town to meet the requirements of the law, even where the 
town has madfe no appropriation or an insufficient appro- 
priation. (Gormley vs. School Committee of Pawtucket, 
cited in next paragraph, and citing Horton vs. City of Newport, 
27 R. I. 283. And see Hardy vs. Lee, Supreme Court, May 1, 
1914.) 

10. To change text books by two-thirds vote of the com- 
mittee (by a majority vote of all the members elected in Provi- 
dence), but not more frequently than once in three years unless 
by the consent of the State Board of Education. (C. 67, s. 13). 
A change of editions is not a change of text books. (Dec. 
79, Manual, 1896.) Unless under special rule of the school 
committee notice of a motion to reconsider suspends the 
finality of the action taken by the committee, a motion to recon- 
sider and reconsideration at a meeting subsequent to a change in 
textbooks ordered by the legal majority of the committee is 
invalid; it amounts to an attempted second change within the 
three year period. (Gormley vs. School Committee of Paw- 
tucket; decision of Commissioner Ranger, approved June 11, 
1906, by Douglas, C. J., not reported.) 

11. To select teachers (C. 67, s. 9) properly certificated 
(C. 68, s. 1), and to dismiss teachers, after notice and a hearing, 
for refusal to conform to regulations made by the committee, or 
for other just cause (C. 68, s. 5). The teacher dismissed may 
appeal to the Commissioner of Public Schools. Rising public 
opinion favor entrusting the nomination of teachers to the 
superintendent. The school committee, exclusively, has the 
power to hire and contract for the services of teachers, and 



68 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

incidentally power to fix salaries. The town or city is bound by 
the contract made by the committee with the teacher. (Hardy 
vs. Lee, Supreme Court, May 1, 1914.) 

12. To prescribe the studies to be pursued in the schools, 
under the direction of the Commissioner of Pubhc Schools. 
(C. 67, s. 6.) Courses in high schools must be approved by 
the State Board of Education as a condition precedent to State 
aid. (C. 67, s. 2, as amended by C. 446, P. L. 1909.) The course 
of study must include instruction in physiology and hygiene, 
with special reference to the effects of alcoholic liquors, stimu- 
lants and narcotics upon the human system. (C. 67, s. 4.) 

13. To approve registered private schools maintaining 
approved courses and standards of instruction and otherwise 
complying with the State laws. (C. 72, s. 2.) 

14. To take an annual census in the month of January of 
persons between the ages of five and fifteen years, resident in 
their respective towns on the 1st of January. The census 
includes information as to age, number of weeks' attendance at 
schools, parents' name and residence. The returns, arranged 
alphabetically must be in the hands of the school committee 
March 1st. A certificate that the law has been compHed with 
must be forwarded to the Commissioner of Pubhc Schools as a 
condition precedent to the payment of public school money to the 
towns. (C. 66, s. 17.) 

15. To provide, if more convenient or expedient, for the 
attendance of town children at schools in neighboring towns, 
and to pay tuition therefor out of the town appropriation. 
(C. 67, s. 7.) 

16. To make provision, at the expense of the town, for the 
free attendance of its children at some high school or academy 
approved by the State Board of Education, if the town itself 
does not maintain a high school. (C. 74, s. 2, as amended by 
C. 446, P. L. 1909.) A backward child, repeating a year's 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 69 

work, does not forfeit his right to free tuition. (Opinion of the 
Commissioner,, in re Coventry, Jan. 4, 1913.) 

17. To suspend during pleasure, pupils found guilty of 
incorrigibly bad conduct or of violation of the school regulations. 
(C. 67, s. 8.) 

18. To appoint truant officers. (C. 72, s. 3.) 

19. To issue age and employment certificates and certificates 
of attendance. (C. 72, s. 1; C. 78, s. 1, amended by C. 956, 
P. L. 1913.) 

20. At its discretion to establish open air schools for children 
not in physical condition to attend ordinary schools, and to 
furnish necessary medical, food or other suppHes for such 
schools. (C. 816, P. L. 1912.) 

21. To appoint, at its discretion, school physicians and 
provide for inspection of all schools. (C. 725, P. L. 1911.) 

22. To report annually on or before the first day of July to 
the Commissioner of Public Schools in manner and form by him 
prescribed, on blanks to be furnished by the Commissioner. 
(C. 67, s. 10.) 

23. To report annually to their respective towns at the 
annual town meeting the report to be read in open meeting 
unless printed. (C. 67, s. 10.) The committee may reserve 
from the public school money distributed by the State $40 
for printing its report. (C. 67, s. 11.) If printed, three copies 
must be transmitted to the Commissioner of Public Schools 
before July 1st. (C. 67, s. 10). The committee is limited only 
in the use of State money for this printing; of town school money 
it may use any amount which appears expedient. 

IV. Town and City Superintendents. 

School committees are required by law to elect a superin- 
tendent of schools for each town or the school committees of 
two or more towns in which the aggregate number of schools 



70 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

does not exceed 60 may unite and elect a joint superintendent. 
(C. 66, s. 5, 6 and C. 804, P. L. 1912.) The requirement that 
the superintendent shall be elected annually at a first regular 
meeting of the school committee after the annual election (27 E . 
I. 596) has been repealed (C. 946, P. L. 1913), and the law pro- 
vides no definite tenure for the superintendent. His salary 
is fixed by the school committees, but the State encourages a 
minimum of $1,5C0 annually by undertaking to pay half a 
salary of that amount (C. 66, s. 8, 9, 10). Sixteen towns still 
pay less than $1,500. 

Every superintendent is required by law (C. 725, s. 2) to 
cause an examination by teachers or school physicians of the 
sight and hearing of school children at least once a year, to 
preserve the record and notify parents of defects. Otherwise 
the duties of the superintendent of schools are prescribed by 
the school committee ; he is elected to perform, under the advice 
and discretion of the committee, such duties and to exercise such 
powers as the committee shall assign to him (C. 66, s. 5). The 
superintendent may become the expert adviser of the school 
committee and its leader. 

The superintendent need not be a citizen of the town or city, 
nor even of the State (School Manual, 1896, p. 324), but he 
must hold a certificate of eligibility issued by or under the 
authority of the State Board of Education. (C. 66, s. 10.) 
These certificates are of three grades: 

1. Temporary certificates of the first grade may be issued 
upon presentation of satisfactory evidence of good moral 
character, graduation from an approved college or normal school 
and successful experience of five years as superintendent. Upon 
proof of ten years' experience as superintendent and other 
qualifications as specified, the certificate may be made per- 
manent. 

2. Temporary certificates of the second grade may be issued 
upon presentation of satisfactory evidence of good moral char- 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 71 

acter, education and five years' experience as superintendent. 
This certificate also may be made permanent upon proof of ten 
years' experience as superintendent. 

3. Temporary certificates of the third grade may be issued 
to candidates whose quahfications do not meet the require- 
ments for classes 1 and 2, who present satisfactory evidence of 
good moral character, and of scholastic and professional qualifi- 
cations showing fitness for the service. When deemed expedi- 
ent, an application for a certificate of this class must be approved 
by the school committees employing the applicant. 

In lieu of five years' experience as superintendent, special 
training for superintendence through professional courses in 
supervision and administration pursued for not less than one 
year at an approved college or normal school or successful 
experience of ten years as a teacher may be accepted, but no 
permanent certificate may be granted to any applicant whose 
experience as superintendent has not extended over at least 
five years. 

V. Other State and Municipal Officers Connected with 
Schools. 

a. Factory Inspectors. The Governor appoints triennially 
one chief and four assistant factory inspectors, one of whom 
must be a woman, whose duty it is to visit and inspect factories, 
workshops and other establishments and to report to school 
committees in the city or town where the child resides the 
names and residences of all children found working without 
school certificates. (C. 78, as amended by C. 936, P. L. 1913; 
C. 836, P. L. 1912; C. 576, P. L. 1910.) Factory inspectors, 
in case of doubt as to the accuracy of statements in age and 
employment certificates, may conduct investigations and 
order certificates cancelled if illegally issued. 

b. Truant Officers. School committees are required to 
appoint annually in December, one or more persons as truant 



72 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

officers, whose duty it is to inquire into cases of truancy, prose- 
cute and serve process, to visit and inspect places and establish- 
ments where children of school age are employed and to prose- 
cute habitual truants. (C. 72.) 

c. Medical Inspectors. The State pays, up to $250, one- 
half the amount which any town or city pays for regular medical 
inspection of school children whether in public or private schools. 
(C. 725, P. L. 1911.) Excellent work along this comparatively 
new line is being done in several towns and cities, and rapid 
extension is promised. The administrative problem of control 
of this function by school committees or board of health has 
not been worked out in practice; no conflict has arisen, and 
legislation has not been necessary. The school physician is 
an officer whose duties are multiplying and whose importance 
is appreciated with the extension of knowledge of hygiene. 

d. Town Governments and Town Officers. Towns are 
required to establish and maintain sufficient schools (C. 66, 
s. 1), for a period not less than 36 weeks per year. (C. 1907, 
P. L. 1914.) Town Treasurers are required to receive public 
school money apportioned by the State, and to keep separate 
accounts of State and town public school money, and pay the 
same on the order of the school committee; to credit poll 
tax receipts for the preceding year on the first Monday of May 
to the public school account; to submit to town school com- 
mittees on the first day of July in each year a statement of all 
money applicable to the support of the public schools; to trans- 
mit to the Commissioner of Pubhc Schools annually on or 
before the first day of July, a certificate of the amount which 
the town has voted to raise by tax (a condition precedent to 
sharing State aid) for school purposes, and the amount paid 
out in the order of the school committee in the year ending on 
the next preceding 30th of April (C. 66, s. 11, 12, 13). Town 
clerks are required to distribute school documents and blanks 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 73 

sent them, to the persons for whom they are intended. (C. 66, 
s. 14.) Town councils may fill vacancies on the school com- 
mittee until the next election (C. 66, s. 4); in Providence, 
vacancies in ward delegations are filled by the remaining 
members of the delegations. 

D. School Property. 
I. Land and Buildings. 

a. Towns to Provide. — Towns may vote, in meetings notified 
for that purpose, to provide schoolhouses, together with the 
necessary fixtures and appendages thereof. (C. 66, s. 2.) In the 
cities the same power is exercised by City Councils. While 
the duty to provide schools is mandatory (C. 66, s. 1), towns 
may not levy taxes (except to pay debts) in excess of 13^% per 
annum, nor increase their indebtedness beyond 3% of their 
taxable property without special authority from the Legis- 
lature. (C. 46, s. 21, 22.) Title to school property vests in 
the town, which holds the school estate as a public trust. (26 
R. I. 165.) 

b. School Committees to Locate. — School committees locate 
sites for schoolhouses (C. 66, s. 3); no other location is legal or 
binds the town. (Dube vs. Peck, 22 R. I. 443; Dube vs. Dixon, 
27 R. I. 115.) It was held in an early case that no appeal from 
the discretion of the school committee in locating a school 
house lies to the Commissioner of Public Schools. (Gardner's 
Appeal, 4 R. I. 602.) This opinion was disregarded subse- 
quently by Elisha Potter, an ex-Commissioner, who, as a judge 
of the Supreme Court, maintained the Commissioner's right 
to entertain appeals from any act of a school committee. The 
committee 's act in determining location may, therefore, be taken 
on appeal before the Commissioner of Public Schools. (Cot- 
trell's Appeal, 10 R. I. 615.) 

c. Condemnation. — When land is taken for school purposes 
through condemnation, proceedings are instituted and con- 



74 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

ducted by the school committee. (C. 75.) After the town has 
voted to take land, not exceeding one acre at one taking, the 
school committee within six months files in the town record 
office a plat and description of the location; title then vests in the 
town. The school committee may then agree with the owners 
on a basis for compensation, faihng which the owners may 
within one year petition the court for assessment of value by a 
jury. (C. 75.) Payment for land taken for school purposes 
is made on orders of the school committee. In Providence, 
however, the City Council controls the expenditure of money 
appropriated for the purchase of land for school purposes, or for 
the improvement of the same or for the construction or repair 
of school buildings. (C. 73, s. 6.) Elsewhere throughout the 
State the school committee expends school money. (Times 
Publishing Company vs. White, 23 R. I. 334.) 

d. Title — Changing Boundaries. — Under the several acts 
permitting the abolition of school districts and finally abolishing 
the district system title to district school property vested in the 
cities and towns. (North Smithfield, 26 R. I. 165; affirmed, 
34 E,. I. 256.) When town boundaries are changed statutory 
provision is made for transfer of title to school property affected, 
and for an adjustment of school debts, and for special assess- 
ments or rebates of taxes aimed at equitable readjustment. 
The constitutionality of these proceedings is established by the 
older district transfers. (See Cranston, petitioners, 18 R.. I. 
417.) 

e. Title in Fee Simple.— The title to school property acquired 
by condemnation or purchased by agreement is taken in fee 
simple. Reversionary rights have been claimed on some older 
grants which stipulated use exclusively for school purposes. 
The courts, however, will not construe the closing of a school- 
house and temporary disuse as an abandonment. (East Green- 
wich vs. Gimmons, 34 R. I. 256.) 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND, 75 

f. State Money Not Available for Land or Buildings. — State 
or town public school money could not be used for building or 
repairing district schoolhouses. Money appropriated by the 
State, except the special fund provided by Chapter 947 (P. L. 
1913) may not be used for the erection or repair of buildings or 
the acquisition of school sites. 

g. Exemption from Legal Process. — School property under 
the district system was exempt from levy and execution for 
district debts. Statutory provision for the collection of debts 
from towns and cities provides other process than levy upon 
school property for the enforcement of just claims. School 
property is not subject to a mechanic's lien. (Hovey vs. East 
Providence, 17 R. I. 80.) 

h. Building Laws and Sanitation. — School buildings must 
be erected, maintained and equipped in compliance with laws 
whose purpose is to protect life from fire (C. 129), or to diminish 
danger to life in case of fire. (C. 131). Buildings three or 
more stories in height must be equipped with fire escapes or 
incombustible stairways. Proper exits must be provided, and 
doors and windows opening on fire escapes must swing out- 
ward. The State Board of Education has power also to approve 
proper standards of lighting, heating, ventilating, seating and 
other sanitary arrangements of school buildings, and proper 
regulations covering the same, and to communicate these to 
school committees or other committees having charge of the 
erection, alteration, equipment or furnishing of any school 
building. (C. 725, s. 3, P. L. 1911), 

i. Use and Abuse of School Property. — School property is 
dedicated to school purposes. The law provides penalties for 
injury to pubHc property (C. 345), or for wilful interruption of 
school exercises. (C. 344; Douglas vs. Baxter, 18 R. I. 459.) 
Nuisances may not be located near school property (C. 73), and 
no liquor license may be granted within 200 feet on any travelled 
way (C. 123). School buildings may be used for educational 



76 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

purposes collateral to the main purpose of public education, 
"such as meetings for school business, lectures upon literary or 
scientific subjects, debating societies for the people or children 
of the district. It may not be easy in all cases to draw the line 
between legal and illegal cases, but it would be perfectly clear 
that the schoolhouse could not be used for trade or religious 
meetings if any person objected to it." (Dec. 5, Manual, 1896.) 
School buildings may be used for private paid instruction in 
singing. (Appeal of Barnes, 6. R. I., s. 91.) The city of 
Providence is using school halls for public lectures (under a 
special act permitting an appropriation for this purpose). (C. 
858, P. L. 1912.) There is in Rhode Island no serious legal 
impediment to any reasonable "wider use of the school plant." 

II, Books, Supplies and Apparatus. 

a. Free Text Books and Supplies. — The school committee 
of every town and city is required to purchase at the expense of 
the city or town, text books and supplies for use in the public 
schools, and to loan them free of charge to pupils in the schools, 
subject to such rules and regulations as the school committee 
may prescribe. (C. 67, s. 12.) Provision is also made for the 
disposition or distribution of books after use. (C. 944, P. L. 
1913). School committees may change text books by a two- 
thirds vote of the whole committee, or in Providence by a 
majority vote of the elected members, but not oftener than once 
in three years without the consent of the State Board of Edu- 
cation. (C. 67, s. 13). See paragraphs 9 and 10 under Duties 
of School Committees. 

"Supplies'' as used in the statute unquestionably covers 
stationery, drawing materials, globes, laboratory material and 
other such articles for use in the schools in or as accessories to 
school work. It is a term which is capable of liberal interpre- 
tation and extension to meet varying demands from time to 
time. Whether it would cover school lunches, should school 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 77 

feeding be undertaken in Rhode Island, is a moot question, 
probably to be answered negatively. At any rate, the legis- 
lation permitting cities and towns to establish and conduct 
open air schools (C. 816), specifically provides authority "to 
furnish for the conduct of such schools, such medical, food or 
other supplies as are necessary for the purposes for which such 
schools are or may be estabUshed." This law, of course, 
removes doubt as to the power of school committees to conduct 
open air schools. It may possibly be construed in its specific 
granting of authority to furnish "medical, food and other 
supplies" as negativing a general authority to furnish such 
supplies for other schools. 

b. Equipment. — The statutes impose no limitation upon 
the authority of school committees in supplying apparatus and 
equipment, but the money available for school purposes imposes 
a practical limitation. Reason must be the rule which best 
may guide school committees in determining what equipment 
to buy and how much may be purchased. 

c. State Aid is provided to the extent of $4,000 annually for 
towns equipping schools with dictionaries, encyclopaedias and 
other works of reference, maps, globes and other apparatus. 
(C. 65.) To become entitled to such State money the town 
must present vouchers for money already expended by the town 
for the purpose with apphcations for aid to the Commissioner 
of Public Schools, who is authorized to draw orders for half the 
amount expended by the towns, but not exceeding ten dollars 
for any school or $200 for any town in any year. Towns pro- 
viding instruction in manual training and household arts, may 
receive State aid to the extent of one-half the town's actual 
expenditure for apparatus necessary for such instruction (C. 845, 
P. L. 1913), and towns maintaining day or evening courses for 
vocational industrial education, including instruction in the 
principles and practice of agriculture and training in the 
mechanic and other industrial arts, which courses are approved 



78 SCHOOL LAW OF KHODE ISLAND. 

as to equipment, instruction, expenditure, supervision and 
conditions of attendance by the State Board of Education, 
may receive from the State in support of instruction in such 
courses not exceeding one-half of the entire expenditure for the 
same. (C. 845, P. L. 1913.) Cost of equipment or of land or 
buildings or of rent may not be included in computing the town 's 
expenditure, nor is such aid available for manual training schools 
except so far as these schools include courses properly classed as 
industrial courses. The statute distinctly separates manual 
training from industrial courses, aidiitg the former only by 
contributions for apparatus, the latter by assuming one-half 
the expenditure for instruction; and it is not possible under the 
statute to combine the aid received. 

d. School Libraries. — Towns are authorized to appropriate 
money for school libraries. (C. 46, s. 1.) 

III. Care, Maintenance and Repair. 

Except in Providence, where the City Council makes repairs 
on school buildings (C. 73, s. 6), the school committee has 
supervision of repairs and maintenance, may order the same 
and draw orders on the treasurer for payment. (Times Pub- 
lishing Company vs. White, 23 R. I. 334.) Early decisions 
of the Commissioner of Public Schools declared that neither 
teachers nor scholars could be compelled to build school fires. 
School committees have ample authority to employ janitors and 
caretakers, and to make provision for reasonable repairs on 
schoolhouses. State school funds except the special fund 
provided by Chapter 947 (P. L. 1913), may not be used for 
care, maintenance or repairs of school buildings. Under the 
district organization town school money could not be used to 
repair or improve district schoolhouses. (Dec. 77, Manual, 1896.) 

E. School Year and School Holidays. 

The minimum school year is 36 weeks. (C. 1907, P. L. 1914) . 
The law recognizes a fact, all towns having reached the minimum 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND, 79 

previous to its enactment. The following days are school 
holidays: New Year's, Washington's Birthday, Memorial 
Day, July 4, Columbus Day, Christmas Day (and the day 
following if any of these fall on Sunday), and Labor Day. 
Grand Army Flag Day (Feb. 12), Rhode Island Independence 
Day (May 4), and Arbor Day (the second Friday in May) are 
days which shall be suitably observed by school exercises, 
the program for which it is the duty of teachers to arrange. 
When days of special observance fall on Saturday or Sunday, 
the school exercises must be held the preceding Friday. (C. 
1011, P. L. 1914.) 

F. School Finance. 

Except the income from the permanent school fund and 
money received from the Federal Government as aid for the 
Rhode Island State College, the State of Rhode Island obtains 
the money which it subsequently appropriates for education 
from general taxes. Special assessments or special school taxes 
are infrequently levied by the towns and cities since the aboli- 
tion of school districts. State school finance was sufficiently 
treated in chapter two in connection with the description 
given there of the administration of schools directly main- 
tained and managed by the State. In this section school finance 
is treated with special reference to the towns and cities. 

I. Sources of Revenue. 

a. General Taxation and Appropriation.- — The fundamental 
source of revenue for school purposes is public taxation, and 
the customary provision for school funds is made, not by the 
levy of special taxes for school purposes, but by the levy of 
general taxes and appropriation of definite amounts. Appro- 
priations by towns for school purposes are necessary, first, as 
compliance with the town's duty to provide schools, and, sec- 
ondly, to establish the town's right to share in the distribution 



80 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

of State aid Any town which fails to make prior to July 1, 
in any year, an appropriation equalhng the town's share in the 
State's annual appropriation of teachers' money (C. 65, s. 3) 
forfeits its right to State aid. (C. 65, s. 4, 5). The Commis- 
sioner of Public Schools has no power to remit this forfeiture, 
though he may remit any other fine, penalty or forfeiture under 
the school law. (C. 70, s. 6.) 

b. State Aid. — The aid which the State distributes to the 
towns icbnsists of an apportionment of several annual appro- 
priations, as follows: 

1. One hundred and twenty thousand dollars annually is 
apportioned to the towns by the Commissioner of Public 
Schools, on a basis slightly favoring the smaller towns. One 
hundred dollars is apportioned to each school, not to exceed 
fifteen in any one town, and the balance of the fund in propor- 
tion to the number of children from five to fifteen years of age, 
inclusive, in the several towns, according to the last school 
census. This money may be used only for payment of teachers ' 
salaries. (C. 65, s. 1, 2, 3.) 

2. ToMms maintaining high schools or sending town children 
to academies or high schools in neighboring towns, receive from 
the State $25 each for each pupil in average attendance up 
to 25 pupils, and $15 for each pupil in excess of 25 up to 50. 
This aid amounts to $625 for 25 pupils, and $1,000 for 50 
pupils. To receive this aid a town may not refuse to admit, up 
to its high school capacity, children sent by school committees 
from other towns, at tuition not exceeding the per capita cost 
per pupil for maintenance. 

3. Seven thousand dollars is available annually for dis- 
tribution by the State Board of Education to aid evening 
schools. (C. 65, s. 10.) 

4. Towns complying with the teacher's minimum salary 
law, may receive from the State a sum equal to one-half the 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 81 

amount by which $400 exceeds the previous average salary. 
(C. 458, P. L. 1909.) 

5. Towns employing a superintendent of schools at an 
annual salary of not less than $1,500 may receive $750 annually 
from the State. (C. 66, s. 9). Towns employing a joint super- 
intendent may receive from the State one-half the town's 
proportional share of the superintendent's salary up to an 
amount not exceeding $750 for each joint superintendency. 
(C. 66, s. 8.) 

6. Up to $10 per school and $200 per town, towns may 
receive one-half of the town's expenditure for school diction- 
aries, encyclopaedias, works of reference, maps and illustrative 
material. (C. 65, s. 7, 8, 9.) 

7. One-half the amount which the town expends for appa- 
ratus for instruction in manual training and household arts 
may be paid by the State. (C. 845, s. 1, P. L. 1912.) 

8. One-half the town's expenditure for instruction in 
courses in vocational industrial education may be paid by the 
State. (C. 845, s. 2, P. L. 1912.) 

9. Up to $250 any town may receive from the State one- 
half the amount which it expends annually for regular medical 
inspection of public and private schools. (C. 725, P. L. 1911.) 

10. Towns consolidating ungraded schools and establishing 
graded schools receive $100 annually for each graded depart- 
ment, and do not forfeit thereby, provided the number of 
schools is reduced, any portion of the teachers' money (C. 74, 
s. 1, 3, 4, 5 and 6, and C. 65, s. 1; also paragraph numbered 1 
under this section). 

11. The State through the trustees of the Normal School, 
pays $400 for critic teachers supervising teaching by Normal 
School pupils in State training rooms. 

12. Finally the State appropriates $5,000 annually to aid 
public schools in towns in which the taxable property is not 



82 SCHOOL LAW OF KHODE ISLAND. 

adequate, at the average rate of taxation throughout the State, 
to provide pubhc schools of high standard. (C. 947, P. L. 1913.) 

The variety of purposes which condition State aid and 
the variety of methods of apportionment warrant a brief 
commentary : 

1. The State's general appropriation of $120,000 for 
teachers' money has stood without change in amount or in the 
ratio of apportionment for 30 years. The $3,500 for increase 
of teachers' salaries, $4,000 for school apparatus, $15,500 for 
supervision, $28,500 for high and graded schools, $7,000 for 
evening schools, $5,000 for industrial education, $2,000 for 
medical inspection, and $5,000 for special aid to public schools — 
in all, $70,500, which the State distributes for expenditure by 
the towns— with one exception have been provided by legis- 
lation within 30 years. The fair conclusion to be drawn is 
that the State's school financial policy has been changed from 
that of general aid, to aid for specified purposes and in specific 
instances. 

2. No town or city's share in the State's apportionment of 
school money is so small that the school committee of the town 
or the town can afford to forfeit it. Forfeiture by the town 
means increased public taxation to meet the mandatory obli- 
gation resting on the town to provide schools. Forfeiture by 
act of the school committee means an unpleasant experience in 
attempting to explain to taxpayers why the forfeiture, which 
involves increased taxation, was incurred. 

3. When it is borne in mind that the State Board of Edu- 
cation and the Commissioner of Public Schools may withhold 
State aid from towns which do not comply with the law, or the 
regulations and rules which the State Board may prescribe, 
or the conditions which the Commissioner of Public Schools 
in his supervisory and directing capacity may stipulate, no 
one may deny the almost perfect centralization of school 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 83 

authority which the j&scal p'oHcy creates and maintains, although 
the statutes are not burdened with a plethora of specific details. 
A school officer or a school committee wandering from the path 
prescribed for him or it soon encounters authority which he or 
it may not evade, — ^but generally admonitory and persuasive, 
for the poHcy of the present Board of Education and Commis- 
sioner of Public Schools is to secure compliance with the law — 
not to inflict penalties. 

4. It becomes the imperative duty of school officers and 
superintendents: First, to acquaint themselves with the 
State 's fiscal policy and to obtain for their towns a full share 
in the State's pubhc school money; secondly, to present in 
their reports to taxpayers and to city councils complete infor- 
mation on fiscal matters in such manner that the towns may 
feel the spur of encouragement for better school facilities which 
the State aid is designed to create ; thirdly, to point out the 
specific instances in which the State's aid is extended by pay- 
ment to the town only after the town itself has expended money, 
as in the rebate payments for apparatus, etc., so that the towns 
may make provision for such matters by special appropriation or 
permit the payment of the State's money into the school fund; 
that is, the school committee should see to it that the charge on 
the school funds in such instances should be only the net 
expenditure by the town. 

c. Poll Taxes. — Assessors of taxes are required at the 
time of the annual assessment of town and city taxes, to assess 
against every person in the town who, if registered, would be 
qualified to vote, a tax of one dollar or so much thereof as with 
his other taxes shall amount to one dollar (C. 59, s. 1), and upon 
every male alien resident in the town six months a similar poll 
tax of one dollar. (C. 1901, P. L. 1914.) This tax thus assessed 
is to be applied to the support of the public schools. (C. 59, s. 3.) 
Town treasurers are required to credit the public school account, 
on the first Monday of May in such year, with the total amount 



84 SCHOOL LAW OF KHODE ISLAND. 

of money received for poll taxes during the year ending the 
30th day of April last preceding. (C. 66, s. 11.) There is an 
apparent conflict in the statutes, which in one place specify that 
the poll taxes assessed shall be applied to the public schools, 
and in another require the crediting to the school account of 
only the amount of the tax collected. If the money assessed as 
poll taxes were credited to school funds, the general appro- 
priation for this purpose could be reduced — but the difference 
is one of bookkeeping. 

d. Dog Licenses. — Owners of dogs are required to license 
them in the city or town of residence, and to pay an annual 
license fee. (C. 135, s. 1.) The balance of receipts from dog 
licenses, after paying therefrom damages by dogs to sheep 
or lambs, cattle or horses, hogs or fowls, are paid over on the 
first Monday in May into town and city school funds unless the 
town votes to retain the balance as a separate fund for the pay- 
ment of damages by dogs. 

e. Tuition. — Town school committees are authorized (C. 67, 
s. 7), when deemed convenient or expedient, to arrange for the 
attendance of children at schools in neighboring towns and to 
pay tuition for them; such tuition may be used by the town 
receiving it for school purposes only. School committees of 
towns not maintaining high schools are required to make pro- 
vision at the expense of the town for free attendance at high 
schools in other towns, which under the law may not, if they 
receive State aid for high schools, charge tuition in excess of 
the average cost per pupil for maintaining high schools. Towns 
or cities may admit non-resident pupils upon payment of 
tuition. In the cities and large towns revenue from tuition is a 
considerable item in school budgets. 

f . Sale of School Property. — -The law permits the sale of text 
books after use. (C. 67, s. 12; C. 944, P. L. 1913.) The sale of 
other apparatus and equipments when discarded furnishes a 
small revenue. 



SCHOOL LAW OF KHODE ISLAND. 85 

g. Fines under the truancy law are applied to the support of 
pubUc schools in the town in which the offence for which the fine 
was levied was committed. (C. 72, s. 6.) 

h. Towns may receive gifts for school purposes either for 
immediate use or for permanent investment in accordance 
with the terms of the gifts. The city of Newport derives an 
income for school purposes, amounting to $7,000 annually 
from invested school funds. The Long Wharf Association of 
that city, a public corporation, has built two schoolhouses for 
the city. The town of Bristol in recent years received from one 
of its wealthy citizens a high school building. 

II. Custodians of School Funds. 

Town treasurers are custodians of money voted by towns for 
school purposes, and receive the money due from the State 
for public schools. Such officers also transfer to public school 
accounts annually on the first Monday in May money received 
from poll taxes and balances from dog Hcenses. (C. 66, s. 11, and 
C. 135.) Town treasurers are required by law to keep separate 
accounts of town and State pubhc school money (C. 66, s. 11); 
to submit to school committees before the first day of July, 
annually, a statement of money applicable to the support of 
pubhc schools for the current school year, specifying the sources 
of the same (C. 66, s. 12), and to present to the Conmiissioner 
of Pubhc Schools on or before the first day of July a certificate 
of the amount which the town has voted to raise by tax for the 
support of the schools for the current year, and a statement 
of the amount paid out on the order of the school committee, 
and from what sources it was derived, for the year ending the 
30th of April next preceding. (C. 66, s. 13.) This fixes the begin- 
ning of the fiscal school year on May 1. 

III. Payments. 

a. Who May Order. — Payments from the pubhc school 
funds held by town treasurers may be made exclusively on 



86 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

orders drawn by the school committee. (C. 66, s. 11 and 13; 
C. 67, s. 9. Times Pubhshing Company vs. White, 23 R. I. 
334.) Consistently with this clear intent of the statute, it is 
held that until a school committee has ordered the p3,yment of a 
teacher 's wages the town school fund may not be attached by 
garnishment. (Spencer vs. School District No. 17, in Warwick, 
11 R. I. 537.) And also that the Commissioner of Public Schools 
after determining an appeal against a town may not draw an 
order upon the town treasurer for money awarded by him. 
(Randall vs. Wetherell, 2 R. 1. 120.) The court by dictum in the 
latter case laid down the procedure to be followed by the 
Commissioner of Public Schools as an order to the school 
committee, to be followed by mandamus if the school committee 
is stubborn. School orders and other official papers may be 
signed for the school committee by the chairman or clerk 
thereof. (C. 67, s. 1.) 

b. For What Purposes. — The statutes specifically designate 
the uses to which State public school money may be applied, 
and require the keeping of separate accounts of its disburse- 
ment. (C..66, s. 13.) More latitude is permitted in the use of 
town school money, but expenditures of town funds must be 
reported to the State and town authorities. Supplies is the most 
indefinite work in the school law, and disputes arise occasionally 
between school committees and town auditors as to what 
articles may properly be called school suppHes. One of these 
resulted in the adoption of Chapter 816 (P. L. 1912), making 
provision for open air schools, and permitting school com- 
mittees to furnish for the conduct of such schools such medical, 
food or other supplies as are necessary for the purposes for 
which such schools are or may be established. What con- 
stitutes supplies to-morrow may be much more varied than 
supplies for to-day. Reason should guide the school com- 
mittee; the Commissioner of Pubhc Schools may settle disputes 
on appeal. 



SCHOOL LAW OF EHODE ISLAND. 87 

IV. Town's Liability for School Expenses. 

The town's obligation to establish and maintain schools 
is mandatory. (C. 66, s. 1.) A town which fails to appropriate 
for school purposes the minimum amount prescribed by law — • 
that is, an amount equal to the State's apportionment of 
"teachers' money" (C. 65, s. 4) — forfeits its right to State 
public school money (C. 65, s. 5 and 6), but is not relieved 
of its duty to maintain schools. (School Manual, 1896, p. 294.) 

A town may not positively hmit its liability for the expenses 
of maintaining schools to the amount which it appropriates 
therefor. The law imposes specific requirements, and in 
certain instances the school committee's duty is mandatory. 
Thus the school committee is required to elect a superintendent 
of schools (C. 66, s. 5), to make provisions for free attendance of 
town children at high schools (C. 74, s. 2; C. 446, 1909), and to 
provide free text books. (C. 67, s. 12.) In meeting requirements 
of law which are mandatory on it, the school committee has 
power to incur expense on the credit of the town beyond appro- 
priations or in the absence of appropriations. (Gormley vs. 
School Committee of Pawtucket, approved June 11, 1906, by 
Douglas, C. J.; and see Horton vs. City of Newport, 27 R. I. 
283.) Thus far the law is clearly established by statute and 
decision. Beyond, there can be little doubt that the school 
committee may charge the town's credit for any reasonable 
expense incurred in maintaining the schools which the town is 
required to provide. The town or city is bound to pay the 
salaries of teachers engaged by the school committee without 
regard to failure of school funds or artificial division of the year 
for fiscal purposes. (Hardy vs. Lee, Supreme Court, May 1, 
1914.) 

V. Reports. 

The law requires town treasurers to report school expendi- 
tures to their respective towns and to the Commissioner of 



88 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

Public Schools (C. 66, s. 13); and school committees to report 
similarly to the towns and to the Commissioner of Pubhc 
Schools. (C. 67, s. 10.) The Treasurer's report may be a 
brief statement of figures and amounts; the school committee's 
report to the Commissioner must be in such manner and form 
as he prescribes, and to the town should be a complete statement 
in every detail of the doings of the school committee, with 
emphasis upon finance. 

G. School Teachers. 

I. Eligibility and Certification. 

a. Who May Issue Certificates. — No person may be employed 
to teach as principal or assistant in any school supported 
wholly or in part by pubhc money unless such person shall 
have a certificate of qualification issued by or under authority 
of the State Board of Education. (C. 68, s. 1.) 

b. Conditions of Certification. — The State Board of' Edu- 
cation is authorized to issue graded certificates for any time 
specified therein, which are vahd throughout the State. (C. 68, 
s. 2.) The certificates are of four grades: 

1. First grade certificates are issued to graduates of approved 
colleges who have taken courses or pass examinations in the 
history of education, educational psychology, philosophy of 
education, methodology, school management and school law. 
To persons who are not graduates of approved colleges, but who 
present evidence of educational attainments and training 
equivalent to a four year course at an approved college and 
who pass examinations in the six professional subjects already 
named, first grade certificates may be granted only by special 
vote -of the State Board of Education — not by general rule. 
In the past ten years only one first grade certificate has been 
issued to other than a college graduate. The term of a first 
grade certificate is three years. The first grade certificate is 
standard for high school teachers. 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 89 

2. Second grade certificates are issued to graduates of the 
Rhode Island Normal School and to graduates of other approved 
normal schools maintaining courses of at least two years fol- 
lowing high school graduation. The course at the Rhode Island 
Normal School covers two and one-half years. The term of 
second grade certificates is two years. The second grade 
certificate is standard for elementary school teachers. Its 
designation as a "second grade" certificate indicates merely a 
method of classification. The second grade certificate require- 
ments stipulate professional attainments of the highest grade 
for elementary school teachers. 

3. Third grade certificates are issued to candidates other 
than graduates of approved colleges or approved normal 
schools who pass successful examinations in elementary school 
subjects and also in school methods, school management and 
school law, or to those who present evidence of successful pursuit 
of these studies. 

4. Fourth grade certificates are issued to candidates exam- 
ined in the studies required for third grade certificates except 
the professional subjects. These certificates are issued for only 
one year and are not renewable. The holder must qualify 
for a third grade certificate or lose his right to teach. 

Evening school certificates of the third and fourth grade 
are issued the candidate qualified for these certificates, except 
as to the requirements in school management, school methods 
and school law. 

Temporary or provisional certificates are issued only to 
college graduates and teachers of successful experience, and 
these are valid only until the next public examination. 

All candidates for certificates are required to file written 
testimonials of good moral character, and the names and 
addresses of two responsible persons as references. 

c. Examination of Teachers. — The State Board is authorized 
to hold or cause to be held examinations in various parts of 



90 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

the State at its pleasure (C. 68, s. 2), or to issue certificates 
of qualification without examination to persons who present 
evidence of qualification and comply with the regulations of the 
Board. (C. 68, s. 3.) Annual examinations are held at the end 
of June or about the first of July. 

d. Revocation of Certificates. — The State Board of Education 
may annul for cause certificates issued by them, after due notice 
to the holder thereof, and an opportunity for a hearing if desired. 
(C. 68, s. 4.) 

e. Penalty for Employment Without Certificate. — If any town 
pays or causes to be paid any public money to any person for 
teaching, who did not at the time of teaching hold a certificate, 
the Commissioner of Public Schools must deduct from the 
town's share of teachers' money a sum equal to the amount 
illegally paid out. (C. 68. s. 1.) 

II. Selection and Appointment. 

a. Who May Appoint. — The selection of school teachers 
rests exclusively in the school committee. (C. 67, s. 9; C. 73, 
s. 6.) The statutory provision limiting the number of pupils per 
teacher to 50 (C. 39, s. 1, G. L. 1896) was lost in the revision of 
1909. 

b. Who Are Eligible. — Only persons holding certificates 
issued by the State Board of Education are eligible for employ- 
ment as teachers. (C. 68, s. 1.) School committeemen, while 
continued in office, are ineligible to teach as principal or assistant 
in any school within the town where the committeemen reside. 
(C. 68, s. 7.) 

c. Tenure of Employment. — The State law provides no 
tenure of employment for teachers; this matter is left to 
contract between the teacher and the school committee. It 
is customary to provide in teachers' contracts for termination 
at the option of the school committee upon the exhaustion of 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 91 

school funds, or to provide for termination of the contract upon 
notice. In some towns the teachers are formally appointed 
for each school year; in others tenure is continuous. The 
question of a school committee's right to contract with a teacher 
for a period longer than one year has not been litigated. The 
contractual notion of the teacher's tenure is not, however, an 
entirely satisfactory explanation of the status of the teacher in 
Rhode Island. Custom is building a tenure for the teacher 
outside his contract, somewhat resembling that of a tenant 
from year to year. The latter relation arises out of leasehold 
tenure; the tenant at the expiration of his contractural term 
holding over, the relation between landlord and tenant being 
ended only by notice. A teacher in Rhode Island after a 
probationary period as a rule receives what is called a "perma- 
nent" appointment. This means that he will continue to hold 
his employment during good behavior. In some cities he enters 
upon a regular course of service, with salary advances provided 
at regular periods. The system has been worked out without 
legislation; and the teacher, as a rule, is as safe as he could be 
with a specific tenure provided by law. Teachers do not face 
the problem of securing new employment from year to year; 
and the schools are not handicapped by a constantly changing 
personnel in the teaching force. 

d. Who May Dismiss.— The school committee of any town 
may, in reasonable notice to and a hearing of such teacher, 
dismiss any teacher for refusal to conform to the regulations 
madeby them, or for other just cause. (C. 68, s. 5.) The State 
Board of Education may annul a teacher's certificate (C. 68, 
s. 4), and thus force dismissal. From the action of the school 
committee the teacher may appeal to the Commissioner of 
Public Schools; unjust annulment of his certificate leaves the 
teacher without remedy save court proceedings against the 
State Board of Education. 



92 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

e. Other Termination of Employment. — The teacher's con- 
tract may be terminated by resignation, if the latter is accepted 
by the school committee, leaving undetermined the rights of a 
school committee to enforce specific performance and compel 
a teacher who refuses to teach. Presumably the State Board of 
Education might revoke the certificate of a teacher who proved 
unduly refractory. The weight of opinion outside the State is 
that a teacher's contract is not terminated by a destruction of 
the school estate or by the peremptory closing of a school by a 
contagious disease. (35 Cyc. 1099.) Neither is such an act of 
God as would release the town from liability. In the first 
instance, the school committee may provide other accommo- 
dations and continue the school. In the latter the cause of 
closing the school is not permanent; it may be removed within a 
reasonable time, and the teacher, in either instance, holding 
himself in readiness to teach, is entitled to compensation. No 
doubt the same rule would protect the teacher against loss of 
wages over hoUdays or vacations not provided for by contract; 
if, indeed, the teacher's right were seriously questioned. 

The form of teacher's contract generally used in Rhode Island 
protects the towns against liability for teacher's salaries when 
schools are closed by school committees short of the regular 
school term by reason of total expenditure of school funds. 
But this failure of appropriation or shortage of school funds 
would not of itself relieve the town or city from liability on the 
teacher's contract. (Hardy vs. Lee, Supreme Court, May 1, 
1914.) There seems to be no reason to doubt that, in the 
absence of contractual provision otherwise, a teacher is entitled 
to compensation for a full term in spite of closing the schools 
by any act or default of town or school committee. (See 
decision 61, School Manual, 1896.) 

III. Salaries. 

The State law prescribes a minimum salary for day public 
school teachers of $400. (C. 458, P.L. 1909.) Otherwise salaries 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 93 

are determined by agreement between the teacher and the school 
committee. In the cities and larger towns teachers' salaries 
are fixed by regular scales, the amounts being determined by 
years of service and the grade in which the teacher is employed. 
The town has no right to regulate teachers ' salaries by ordinance, 
in conflict with the school committee's rules. (Hardy vs. Lee, 
Supreme Court, May 1, 1914.) The right of a district to 
reduce a teacher's wages within the period of employment 
has been denied. (Decision 61, School Manual, 1896.) Pre- 
sumably the same rule limits school committees. 

IV. Duties of Teacher. 

The first duty of the teacher is to teach the content pre- 
scribed by the course of study, and to maintain order in his 
school. Other duties prescribed by statute are: To keep -the 
school registers and to make reports required by the Commis- 
sioner of Public Schools (C. 68, s. 6) ; to keep record of pupils 
vaccinated (C. 73, s. 10); to implant and cultivate in the minds 
of all children committed to his care the principles of morality 
and virture (C. 68, s. 6) ; to conform to the regulations prescribed 
by the school committee (C. 68, s. 5) ; to prepare suitable pro- 
grams for school holidays. (C. 1071, P. L. 1914.) Principals 
of schools or other persons in charge of schools, public and 
private, having more than 25 pupils, are required to hold fire 
drills, to instruct and train their pupils in rapid exit from school 
buildings. (C. 79, P. L. 19l2; C. 68, s. 9, 10, 11.) The teacher's 
duties do not include building the school fire. (Dec. No. 84, 
Manual, 1896.) 

The rules and regulations of some cities and town school 
committees forbid corporal punishment in the schools, unless 
permission in writing is given by the parent or guardian of the 
pupil. A place for unruly scholars is provided in special 
disciplinary schools or special ungraded rooms. To the pupil 
the teacher stands somewhat in loco parentis ; at common law 



94 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

the teacher might inflict corporal punishment for infractions of 
discipline in school, and out of school while the pupil was on the 
way to or from school. (Manual, 1896, p. 353.) The teacher 
who inflicted corporal punishment might plead his relation to 
the pupil in defence, and might justify an assault by showing 
reasonable cause and reasonable punishment. Under present 
conditions corporal punishment has almost disappeared from 
schools. 

V. Teachers^ Pensions. 

Any person who for 35 years shall have been engaged in 
teaching as his principal occupation, and who has been employed 
in the public schools of the State or schools entirely managed 
and controlled by the State, for 25 years, 15 years of which 
immediately preceding retirement shall have been in Rhode 
Island, may be retired or retire voluntarily at the expiration of 
any school year, in June, and may, on formal application, 
receive from the State an annual pension equal to one-half 
his average contractural salary during the last five years before 
his retirement, but not in excess of $500 in any year. (C. 69, 
s. 1; C. 401, P. L. 1909.) Any person who has been regularly 
employed 20 years in the public schools of the State and who 
has become physically and mentally incapacitated during 
service may, with the approval of the State Board, receive 
such proportion of a regular pension as his years of service 
bear to 35 years. (C. 1090, P. L. 1914.) The pension law is 
administered by the State Board of Education, which has 
authority to make regulations governing the administration, 
and to examine and determine the eligibility of apphcants. 
The apphcant must have held a teacher's certificate issued by 
the State Board of Education. In some cities retirement 
funds have been estabhshed which supplement the State 
pension. 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 95 

VI. Jury Duty. 

Schoolmasters are exempt from jury duty. (C. 279, s. 3; 
C. 662, P. L. 1911.) 

H. Pupils. 

I. Right of Admission. 

No person may be excluded from any public school on account 
of race or color, or for being over fifteen years of age, nor 
except by force of some general regulation apphcable to all 
persons under the same circumstances (C. 73, s. 1); but no 
person may be permitted to attend any public school as a pupil 
unless he presents a certificate of vaccination. (C. 73, s. 10.) 
Backward children may not be excluded; the towns must pay 
tuition for backward pupils repeating work in high schools of 
other towns when the town or residence fails to maintain a high 
school. (Advisory opinion of Commissioner Ranger to School 
Committee of Coventry, Jan. 14, 1913.) The intent of the law 
is that every normal person shall have an opportunity to 
secure the advantages of free public education. For defective 
persons special institutions are provided as indicated in 
Chapter II. 

The school committee may suspend during pleasure all 
pupils found guilty of incorrigibly bad conduct or violation of 
the school regulations (C. 67, s. 8), subject of course to an appeal 
to the Commissioner of Public Schools. No teacher, principal 
or superintendent has authority to expel or suspend a pupil. 
The State is not done with the incorrigibly bad, however, when 
suspension occurs; it may invoke the compulsory attendance 
law (C. 72, s. 5), and have the child who so persistently mis- 
behaves or violates rules and regulations as to incur expulsion 
committed to a reformatory institution. 



96 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

II. Compulsory Attendance. 

a. School Age. — Every child who has completed seven 
years of life and has not completed fifteen years, except 
children over fourteen years who are employed regularly and 
lawfully at labor or service or engaged in business, is required 
to attend a public day school in the town in which he resides, 
unless he has completed the elementary studies taught in the 

'iirst eight years of school attendance, exclusive of kinder- 
garten instruction. (C. 72, s. 1.) 

b. Responsibility of the Child. — The child himself is responsi- 
ble for attendance at school. Habitual truants, that is, 
children within school age, who wilfully and habitually absent 
themselves from school, as well as children who persistently 
misbehave or violate rules and regulations, may be committed 
to the Sockanosset School or the Oaklawn School during 
minority, or placed on probation. (C. 72, s. 5.) 

c. Responsibility of the Parent or Guardian. — Every person 
having under his control a child of school age who neglects 
to send the child to school may be fined not exceeding $20. 
The parent or guardian is permitted to offer defences not 
available to the child, as follows : That the physical or mental 
condition of the child was such as to render his attendance at 
school inexpedient or impracticable, or that the child was 
destitute of clothing suitable for attending school and that 
the person having control of said child was unable to provide 
suitable clothing, or that the child was excluded from school 
by some general law or regulation. (C. 72, s. 1.) The intent of 
the law is that reasons which may excuse the parent or guardian 
shall not relieve the child of responsibility for attendance when 
he is enrolled in a school or is sent to school. (C. 72, s. 1.) 

d. Responsibility of Employer. — No child under sixteen 
years of age may be permitted to work in any factory or manu- 
facturing or business establishment unless he presents to the 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 97 

person or corporation employing him an age and employment 
certificate issued by the school committee of the town in which 
the child resides, under penalty. The employer is required to 
deliver the certificate to the child when leaving employment, 
or if the certificate is not demanded by the child to send it to 
the school committee (C. 78, s. 1; C. 653, P. L. 1911; C. 956, 
P. L. 1913), within two weeks after the child leaves his employ- 
ment. Employers must keep school and age certificates of 
children and show them on demand to factory inspectors and 
truant officers (C. 72, s. 4), and as often as twice a year may be 
required by truant officers to report the names of all children 
employed by them under 16 years of age. The "burden of 
proof" with respect to children under 16 years of age rests 
on the employer; upon demand of a factory inspector who has 
reason to believe that any child employed in a manufacturing 
or business estabhshment has not reached 16 years, the employer 
must obtain and furnish to the inspector within 10 days ^n age 
and employment certificate for the child or exclude the child 
from employment. (C. 78, s. 1; C. 653, P. L. 1911; C. 956, P. L. 
1913.) The law does not apply to children employed in house- 
hold service or in agricultural pursuits; and special provisions 
(without reference to schools) govern the employment of 
children on the stage. (C. 78, s. 2; C. 139.) 

e. Age and Employment Certificates. — A child who has 
completed fourteen years of age may obtain from the school 
committee of the city or town in which such child resides a 
certificate, which shall state the name of the child, the date and 
place of his birth, the height, color of eyes and hair and com- 
plexion of said child, the name and place of residence of the 
person having control of said child, and which shall certify 
that the child has completed 14 years of age, that the child is 
able to read at sight and write legibly simple sentences in the 
English language, and that said child has been examined 
physically by a licensed physician and that the physician has 



98 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

certified that the child is in sufficiently sound health and 
physically able to be employed in any occupation or service in 
which a child of 14 to 16 years may be legally employed. (C. 78, 
s. 1; C. 653, P. L. 1911; C. 956, P. L. 1913.) That is, a child 
eligible to receive an age and employment certificate must be 14 
years of age, able to read and write, and physically sound. 
The age of the child must be proved by a duly attested copy 
of the birth certificate, baptismal certificate, or passport of the 
child; but if neither of these can be produced, other evidence 
satisfactory to the Commissioner of Public Schools, as Secretary 
of the State Board of Education, may be received to prove the 
age of the child; no other person has authority to waive the 
documentary evidence required by the statute. 

Employers must keep a certificate for every child under 16 
and show it to the factory inspector on demand. Truant 
officers also are entitled to inspect age and employment cer- 
tificates held by employers of children. (C. 72, s. 4.) 

f. Exceptions to the compulsory attendance law are not 
uniform with respect to persons, and require careful statement : 

1. In lieu of attendance at public day schools a child may 
attend a private day school or upon private instruction, approved 
by the school committee of the city or town where the private 
school is located or private instruction is given. School com- 
mittees have authority to approve for this purpose private 
schools or private instruction when they are satisfied that the 
period of attendance in such school or upon such instruction is 
substantially equal to that required by law; that instruction in 
the studies taught in the public schools is in the English lan- 
guage; that the teaching is thorough and efficient; and that the 
schools keep the registers required by law and make reports 
of attendance to school committees and truant officers. (C. 
72, s. 1 and 2.) 

2. Parents and guardians of children who have completed 
the course of elementary studies taught in the first eight years 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 99 

of school attendance, exclusive of kindergarten instruction 
and who hold certificates to that effect issued by the school 
committee of the town or residence may not be compelled to 
send such children to school, though the children are of school 
age. But such children, if enrolled in any school or sent to 
school by parent or guardians, must attend regularly under 
penalty of prosecution for truancy. (C. 72, s. 1, s. 5.) Children 
excused from school attendance by this exception may not 
be employed in manufacturing or business establishments if 
under 14 years of age, or if over 14 years of age without age and 
employment certificates. 

3. Parents or guardians in action under the truancy law 
may plead, in addition to exceptions one and two, that the 
physical or mental condition of the child was such as to render 
his attendance at school inexpedient or impracticable, or 
inability to provide suitable clothing for the child, or that the 
child was excluded from school by general law or regulations. 
But these defences are not available to the child. (C. 72, s. 1.)^ 

4. Children over 14 and under 16, if lawfully employed,, 
(that is properly certificated and regularly employed), are 
exempt from school attendance. 

g. The Law Summarized. — The requirements of the com- 
pulsory attendance law may be restated in summary form in 
terms of the duties which it imposes: 

1. The child is required to attend a pubhc or an approved 
private school until he completes fifteen years of life, unless 
(a) he has completed the elementary grades and is no longer 
enrolled as a member of a school or sent to school by his parent, 
or (b) unless, having completed 14 years of age, he holds an 
age and employment certificate and is regularly and lawfully 
employed. 

2. The parent or guardian is required to send to school his 
child who has not completed fifteen years of life unless (a) the 



100 SCHOOL LAW OF EHODE ISLAND. 

child has completed the elementary grades, or (b) unless, being 
over 14 years of age the child is regularly employed, or (c) 
unless the child is mentally or physically incapacitated, or (d) 
unless the parent is unable through poverty to provide clothing, 
or (e) unless the child is excluded by general rule or regulation, 
3. Employers engage children who do not hold age and 
employment certificates at risk of violating the law. 

h. The Machinery of Enforcement. — The machinery of 
enforcing compulsory attendance centres in the school com- 
mittee, which is required to take an annual census of children of 
school age (C. 66, s. 15, 16, 17), which has accessible the record 
of attendance kept by teachers in public schools (C 68, s. 6), 
which may require reports of attendance from approved private 
schools (C. 72, s. 2), and which is required to appoint truant 
officers to enforce the law under its direction. (C. 72, s. 3.) The 
immediate agent of the school committee is the truant officer, 
who has authority to make complaints for violation of the 
truancy law and to serve legal process (C. 72, s. 3), and to visit 
private schools to inspect registers, and to require reports of 
children employed and to inspect age and employment cer- 
tificates of children employed in business and manufacturing 
establishments. (C. 72, s. 3 and 4.) Age and employment cer- 
tificates must be returned to the school committee when a 
child leaves employment, unless the child demands his cer- 
tificate. (C. 78, s. 1; C. 653, P. L. 1911; C. 956, P. L. 1913.) 
The school committee thus has available a list of children named 
in the annual school census, and the record of school attend- 
ance of each child in school; the difference between the two 
indicates a field for work by the truant officer, but his duties 
include also attention to habitual and occasional truancy by 
regularly enrolled pupils. (C. 72, s. 5.) The duties of factory 
inspectors make those State officers auxiliaries in enforcing the 
school law. Besides enforcing the age and employment cer- 
tificate law, factory inspectors are authorized, if doubting the 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 101 

accuracy of any statement in a certificate concerning the age or 
other Quahfication of a child, to demand the certificate, and 
order it cancelled if after investigation it is found that the 
certificate has been illegally issued. (C. 78, s. 1; C. 653, P. 
L. 1911; C. 956, P. L. 1913.) 

i. Penalties. — The law provides penalties by fine for parents 
or guardians who neglect to send children to school (C. 72, s. 1) ; 
by fine for infractions of the age and employment certificate 
law (C. 78) ; by commitment to an institution or probation for 
children violating the truancy law. (C. 72.) 

III. Rights and Duties of Children in School. 

a. Rights. — The children resident in any town or city are 
entitled to attend the public schools thereof without charge for 
tuition, and to receive by loan for use in school all text books 
and supplies necessary for school purposes. (C. 67, s. 12.) 
Tuition may be charged children who are non-resident, except 
the children of officers and soldiers mustered into the service of 
the State, and of citizens of the State who as soldiers died in the 
service in the Civil War, or who were discharged from service 
in consequence of wounds or disease contracted in battle. (C. 
73, s. 9. See 12, R. I. 574.) A city or town is not obliged to 
receive non-resident children in its schools, except that any 
town maintaining a high school and receiving State aid therefor 
must admit, up to its school's capacity over requirements for 
its own children, children from other towns in the State at 
tuition not to exceed the average cost per capita of maintaining 
the school. (C. 74, s. 2; C. 446, P. L. 1909.) 

b. Duties. — Children in school must comply with rules and 
regulations, and in deportment must conform to school stand- 
ards, on penalty of indefinite suspension by the school com- 
mittee. (C. 67, s. 8.) The teacher's right to enforce good 
deportment extends beyond the school property; children on 
the way to and from school are subject to the teacher. (School 



102 SCHOOL LAW OF EHODE ISLAND. 

Manual, 1896, p. 353.) The child must attend sphool regularly, 
incurring by absence the penalty of prosecution for truancy. 

c. ^ Hazing. — The State law forbids students at any edu- 
cational institution in the State to commit any act which in- 
jures, frightens, degrades or disgraces, or which tends to injure, 
frighten, degrade or disgrace a fellow student, or any person in 
charge of a school to permit such acts (C. 343, s. 29 and 30; 
C. 431, P. L. 1909), as misdemeanors, punishable in the first 
instance by fine or imprisonment, and in the latter by fine. 
Tatooing or permanently disfiguring the body of fellow students 
is forbidden as a crime of the degree of mayhem, and punishable 
by imprisonment of from one to ten years. 

d. Services. — Scholars cannot be compelled to build the 
schoolhouse fire (Decision 70, Manual, 1896) ; nor presumably to 
perform other service about the schoolhouse, or to run errands 
for the teacher. 

I. The Course of Study. 

School committees, under the direction of the Commissioner of 
Public Schools, prescribe courses of study. (C. 67, s. 6.) High 
school courses must be approved by the State Board of Edu- 
cation if the town is to receive aid for high school instruction. 
(C. 74, s. 2; C. 446, P. L. 1909.) Courses of study in private 
schools must be approved by local school committees as sub- 
stantially equal to those offered in town schools, if children are 
to be permitted to attend these schools in lieu of public schools. 
(C. 72, s. 2.) Instruction in physiology and hygiene, with 
special reference to the effects of alcoholic liquors, stimulants 
and narcotics upon the human system is required in all schools 
supported wholly or in part by public money. (C. 67, s. 4.) 
Every teacher is required to aim to implant and cultivate in the 
mind of all children committed to his care the principles of 
morality and virtue. (C. 68, s. 8.) School principals are required 
to hold fire drills or rapid dismissal at least once a month. (C. 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 103 

68, s. 9.) The reading of the Bible or conducting other devo- 
tional exercises at the opening or closing of schools is neither 
forbidden nor commanded by law, and rests with the teacher, 
who should respect his own conscience and the consciences of his 
pupils and their parents. See School Manual, 896, p. 351-352. 

J. Appeals. 

1. General Provision. — Any person aggrieved by any decision 
or doings of any school committee or any other matter arising 
under this title (Title X, Public Instruction) may appeal to the 
Commissioner of Public Schools, who after notice to the party 
interested of the time and place of hearing, shall examine and 
decide the same without cost to the parties: Provided, that 
nothing contained in this section shall be so construed as to 
deprive such aggrieved party of any legal remedy. (C. 70, s. 1.) 
The policy of the present Commissioner of Public Schools is to 
adjust grievances by advice without the formality of appeal 
and hearing, where possible. Consequently, a liberal appellate 
jurisdiction is infrequently exercised. The Commissioner may 
hear and decide matters of dispute submitted to him by agree- 
ment in writing; his decision in such cases is final. (C. 70, s. 4.) 
[On the question of notice to parties see Peckham vs. Bicknell, 
11 R. I. 596, otherwise obsolete.] 

2. Extent of the Commissioner's Jurisdiction. — The Com- 
missioner's appellate jurisdiction is confined to school matters. 
Thus he had no authority to adjust a dispute between a tax 
collector and a town treasurer as to the fact of payment of 
money, though the money be school money. (James's Appeal, 
5 R. I. 602.) Provided, however, the matter in dispute is a 
school question, there is no limitation of the Commissioner's 
jurisdiction. The doctrine of Gardner's Appeal (4. P. I. 602), 
has been overruled. In that case it was held specifically that 
the Commissioner of Public Schools had no jurisdiction to 
review the action of a school committee exercising its discretion 



104 SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 

in locating a schoolhouse; and generally that the appellate 
jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Public Schools is limited 
to reviewing acts of school committees violating the law and 
does not extend to acts of a school committee lawfully performed 
where the question involved is merely the discretion exercised 
by the committee. The case was cited and commented on in 
Cottrell's Appeal (10 R. I. 615), which held specifically that the 
Commissioner of Public Schools may review the action of a 
school committee locating a schoolhouse, and generally that the 
appellate jurisdiction of the Commissioner of Public Schools 
extends to reviewing any act of a school committee, even 
acts within the discretion of the committee and wholly in 
accordance with law. The second case is law. The Commis- 
sioner 's appellate j urisdiction extends to any decision or act of a 
school committee and any other matter arising under school 
law, without limitation to remedying infractions of law. And 
see Decision 87, Manual, 1896, p. 259. 

3. The Effect of Decision. — The Commissioner of Public 
Schools may, and if requested on hearing an appeal by either 
party, shall lay a statement of the facts of the case before 
one of the justices of the Supreme Court, whose decision shall be 
final. (C. 70, s. 2.) The judge decides only points of law; 
the Commissioner's conclusion upon the evidence, as set 
forth in the statement of facts prepared by him is final. (Appeal 
of Smith, 4 R. I. 590; Appeal of Cottrell, 10 R. I. 615.) The 
Commissioner may order a rehearing for a good cause (Decision 
No. 90, Manual, 1896, approved by Greene, C. J.), up to the 
time when his decision has been submitted to and approved by a 
justice of the Supreme Court. Upon approval by the judge 
the decision is final, and the Commissioner may not grant a 
rehearing. (Appeal of Smith, 4 R. I. 590; approved in Appeal 
of Cottrell, 10 R. I. 615.) The decision of the Commissioner 
when approved by a judge of the Supreme Court is conclusive 
upon the parties. (Crandell vs. James, 6 R. I. 144; cited 15 



SCHOOL LAW OF RHODE ISLAND. 105 

R. I. 469; 20 R. I. 228; 20 R. I. 766.) On matters submitted to 
the Commissioner by agreement of the parties, his decision is 
final. (C. 70, s. 4.) 

4. Enforcing Decisions. — Mandamus is the remedy for 
enforcing a decision of the Commissioner of PubHc Schools. 
(Dec. 89, Manual, 1896; Randall vs. Wetherell, 2 R. I. 120.) 
The Commissioner has no authority to draw an order on a town 
treasurer for wages which the Commissioner has decided are due 
a teacher. (Randall vs. Wetherell, 2 R. I. 120.) He has no 
jurisdiction over the records of a school committee to alter or 
amend them. (Decision 99, Manual, 1896.) His decision is 
law; enforcement rests with the civil authorities and the courts. 



INDEX. 

{See also topical outline, pages 4^-52.) 



Page. 

Administration, Machinery of 45, 89, et seq. 

Advanced Legislation 24 

Age and Schooling Certificates 97 

Alcohohc Liquors and Narcotics 23, 68, 102 

Apparatus, State aid 23, 81 

Appeals 14, 15, 17, 35, 63, 103, 104 

Apportionment of School Money, 9. 10, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18. 23, 58, 61. 62, 63, 80 

Appropriations 10, 11, 13, 16, 17, 18, 23, 27, 80, 81 

Attendance, Compulsory and Truancy 11, 18, 19, 20, 23, 24 27, 

38, 69, 85, 95, 96, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101 

Blind, Instruction of 20, 38, 59 

Board of Education 18. 20, 24, 57, 58, 59, 60 

Brown University 7, 26, 36, 37,. 40, 42, 43, 59 

Buildings, School, and Plans 13, 15. 19, 27, 57, 58. 75 

Census, School 21, 23, 62, 68, 100 

Certificates, see Age and Schooling . 

Certificates, Teachers' 11, 13, 14, 15, 18, 24, 35, 59, 61, 70, 88, 89, 90 

Child Labor. See Compulsory Attendance. 

CoUege, Rhode Island State 28, 31, 33, 36, 40, 41 

Commissioner of PubUc Schools. . .13, 16, 18, 46, 58, 59, 60, 61, 62, 63, 80 

Committee, School 8, 10, 11, 14. 19, 63, 64, 65, 66, 67, 68, 69, 87, 100 

Compulsory Attendance, see Attendance, Compulsory . 

Constitution, State 12, 57 

Corporal Pimishment 93, 94 

Cost of PubHc Education 4, 5 

Course of Study 23, 68, 102 

Deaf, Education of 37, 38, 59 

Deaf, Rhode Island Institute for 38 



INDEX. 107 

Devotional Exercises 103 

DiscipUne 93, 94, 101 

Districts, School 14, 15, 19, 74 

Dog Licenses 84 

Educational Publications '. 26, 35, 63 

Evening Schools 26. 58, 80 

Exemption, Tax 7, 21, 22, 34. 42 

Expenses, School, Town's Liability 87 

Expulsion and Suspension of Pupils 95 

Factory Inspection 27. 71, 97, 98, 99, 100, 101 

Feeble-Minded, Rhode Island School for 38, 59 

Fire Drill 63, 93 

Fiscal PoUcj^ of the State 82 

Flag and Flag Salute 62, 66 

Free PubHc Libraries 14, 20, 26, 43, 60 

Free Text Books and Supphes 9, 19, 23, 67, 76, 86, 87, 101 

Graduate Study 26, 59 

Hazing 102 

Hearing Tests : 21, 62, 70 

High Schools 24, 53, 58, 68, 80, 87 

Holidays 79, 92, 93 

Hygiene and Physiology 23, 68, 102 

Institutes, Teachers'. 13, 16, 26, 35, 36, 61 

Jury Duty 42, 95 

Juvenile Offenders 39 

Libraries, see Free Public Libraries . 

Libraries, School 11, 78 

Literacy Test for Employment Certificate 97, 98 

Manual Training 26, 40, 58, 81 

Maps 23, 81 

Medical Inspection 27, 34, 58, 69, 72, 81 

Morality and Virtue to be Taught 93, 102 



108 INDEX. 

Neglected Children 39 

Normal School 13, 16, 19, 20, 26, 35, 36, 37, 59 

Open Air Schools 26, 69, 77 

Parochial Schools 21, 22, 33, 34, 60. 68, 98 

Pensions 26, 35, 59, 94, 95 

Permanent School Fund 10, 57 

Poll Taxes 83, 84 

Principal 63, 93 

Private Schools 21, 22, 33, 34, 35, 54, 58, 60, 68, 98, 100 

Property, School 65, 66, 73, 74, 84 

Pupils, Rights and Duties of 69, 94, 95, 96, 101 

Rhode Island Institute for the Deaf 38 

Rhode Island Normal School, see Normal School . 

Rhode Island School of Design 40, 59 

Rhode Island School for Feeble-Minded 38, 59 

Rhode Island School Reports 39 

Rhode Island State College, see College. 

Salary, Minimum, for Teachers 25, 80, 92 

Salary, ResponsibiUty of Town for 87, 92 

Scholars, see Pupils. 

Scholarships, State 26, 37, 40, 59 

School Age 96 

School Committee, see Committee. 

School Law, Mandatory 22, 25, 72, 87 

School Reports 39, 87, 88 

School Year, Minimum 15, 20, 24, 79 

Sight and Hearing Tests 27, 62, 70 

Special Aid for Towns 25, 58, 81, 82 

State Home and School 39 

Superintendent of Schools 17, 19, 23, 26, 35, 37, 59, 64, 69, 70, 

71, 81, 83, 87 

Supplies 76, 77 

Suspension of Pupils 95 

Taxation for Schools 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 16, 18, 80, 83, 84 

Tax Exemption 7, 21, 22, 34, 41 



INDEX. 109 

Teachers, Certificates, see Certificates. 

Teachers, Dismissing and Hking 15, 17, 24, 35, 67, 68, 90, 91, 92 

Teachers, Minimum Salary 25, 80, 92 

Teachers' Money 11, 15, 17, 35, 61, 80 

Teachers' Rights and Duties 35, 88, 89, 90, 91, 92, 93 

Teachers, Training of 36, 37, 59, 61, 81 

Text-Books, Change and Choice 14, 61, 65, 76 

Truancy, see Compulsory Attendance. 

Truant Officers 24, 69, 71, 72, 97, 98, 100 

Tuition 9, 11, 15, 19, 25, 36, 68, 80, 84, 101 

Vaccination 93, 95 

Vocational Industrial Education 26, 40, 58, 81 



